


To Cross The Red Line

by vorkosigan



Series: Peace & Quiet (Among The Stars) [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Battlestar Galactica Fusion, Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Falling In Love, Flirting, Gen, IN SPACE!, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Science Fiction, Slow Burn, avengers are space pilots, fraternization rules are also a bother, it's a Dutch oven basically, military ranks are a bother, pilot training, the slowest of burns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-06-29 07:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 45,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15725136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vorkosigan/pseuds/vorkosigan
Summary: In the heat of battle, a small flotilla jumped away to an unknown sector of space to avoid destruction. They don't know where they are or how to get home. They don't even know if there is a home to get back to. The surviving ships are a ragtag band of soldiers and civilians and civilians that became soldiers out of need. The trouble is, most of the fighter pilots are dead or wounded. Captain Rogers has to train a batch of newly drafted cadets and turn them into decent pilots in no time. And his star pupil is Tony Stark - a famous industrialist and billionaire in his old life. Steve's problem is,Stark is insufferable.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gottalovev](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gottalovev/gifts).



> This is loosely based on Battlestar Galactica, but that was more in order to steal and repurpose the setting than anything else. It takes place during the First Cylon War. So to say. In an adjacent universe, so to speak, where I take whateer pieces of canon I want and twist them to suit my needs. So, no Cylons looking like people, just cool oldtimey battleships and a warlike background as an excuse for a military type scifi setting.
> 
> You don't need to have seen the show to read this. Here's what you need to know:  
> \- There's a set of twelve planets called Twelve Colonies. People live there. The fic doesn't take place there at all, but it's mentioned.  
> \- At one point the 'bots rebelled. Infiltrated all the tech and things. They are now at war with humans. They are called Cylons. They are also just an excuse for an enemy in the fic.  
> \- Battleships are called battlestars (big ones) and gunstars (smaller ones). Gunstars are not even canon. Both carry 'vipers' - smaller fighter crafts - on board. Vipers are piloted by Tony, Steve, Natasha and the others :p  
> That's all, pretty much.

_Oh no_ , thought captain Steve Rogers of the battleship ironically renamed _Eirene_ after the last refurbishment. He was looking at the somewhat familiar features in the file he had just been handed. _Gods, not him_. Brown eyes staring at him from the picture seemed brazen, but that might have been a preconception. Everyone knew who Tony Stark was. He was a cautionary tale.

 

Steve leafed through the file politely, then let it fall to his lap. He gave his commander a long, steady look and raised his eyebrows. "He's tech department. We need the tech people too." Out of all the objections he might have come up with, this one seemed most practical.

 

"He's good," commander Fury countered. "Not just a good engineer, Rogers." He didn't need to say: we desperately need men. He might as well have  said we need water in order to live. Yes, times were desperate, but, Steve thought, this would do more damage than good.

 

"He's..." Steve made a show of glancing at the file again, even though he remembered the data quite well, "...39." Too old to learn. Oh, yes. Steve gave the commander a stubborn look.

 

Fury flattened his hands against the desktop for a second, as if pleading a higher power for patience, but in the Fury-land, that was in short supply. "Know anyone around here who's getting younger? I don't," he snapped. "It's not as if we have an endless supply of candidates. Much as I'd like to get you some rosy-cheeked cadets with perfect grade score for you to pick and choose from, that's not too likely to happen, Captain, not this side of the Red Line."

 

The Red Line, the borders of the known space. Once you ended up on the other side, your chances of finding a way back home were next to nonexistent. And this is where they were now.

 

Steve didn't have much in the vein of patience either. He hadn't slept in almost 20 hours, which was against the regulations. He was normally glad to skirt this particular rule when necessary, but now it was taking its toll. That's why his thoughts were so muddled. _Oh, of course._ _Fury and Stark probably know each other from somewhere._

 

Curiosity won. "Did he come to you when I refused his application?" he asked. He wasn't even pissed. In the situation they were in, you couldn't really be choosy; as Fury said, you were stuck with the men you had. Still: _Stark?_ "Did he ask you to intervene?" Because he wanted to play at being a pilot, Steve thought.

 

"No," Fury snapped. "I went to him, to see why the hell he didn't apply. Then I found out he was preemptively disqualified."

 

Steve felt his eyebrows climb. He'd heard stories – everyone had; he'd just forgotten the young officer in them had actually been Fury. "You knew him. At the Academy," he said, because stating the obvious was apparently his M. O. when he was this tired.

 

"He was in the first class I taught." If he didn't know better, Steve would have dubbed the look on Fury's face as fleeting melancholy. Thankfully, it passed in a moment. Fury shook his head. "I had him kicked out of school within two months."

 

 _And now you want_ me _to take him on?_ "If you think he's worth considering, I'll consider him " Steve said slowly, as if it pained him. "Sir."

 

"You'll notice I haven't given you a direct order," Fury said dryly.

 

Steve's voice was level. "I noticed."

 

"You might want to be thankful for that," Fury continued in the same tone of voice.

 

Steve refrained from shrugging. "Sir. Thank you for your recommendation, I will consider it."

 

Fury snorted. "Don't give me that crap. Go, go, do your job. But keep this in mind, Rogers: I have 7 pilots dead, I have 8 pilots in the sick bay. I have 20 vipers onboard and only 5 pilots on active duty."

 

Vipers were small, single-pilot spacecrafts, a primary means of defense and attack on the larger battleship, and right now most of them were in good repair and standing idle.

 

"Sir." Steve saluted stiffly "Would that be all?"

 

Fury nodded towards the door and Steve rose to go.

 

"Steve." At this, captain hesitated. There was considerably less steel in the commander's voice now. "I'm not ordering you to accept him, all right? But _do_ test him. If he flunks, screw 'im. If he tests well, consider him." Fury made an abortive gesture towards the whiskey bottle on the stand to his right, then changed his mind. Booze was in as short a supply nowadays as patience was. "At eighteen he was a hellion, and definitely unfit for the army. He was wild. Judging by the stories I heard, he's probably still trouble. I don't know him well and I can't say I exactly like him. But even back then, one thing about him stood out, and I'd bet my right eye he's still got it: one hell of a piloting talent." Fury's voice had gone almost mild.

 

Steve paused. Considered. If Fury gave you a compliment, you savored it, because it was probably the only one you were going to get from him. If he said this much, it meant something. Steve didn't ask why Stark was kicked out of the academy – which one of the stories was true – because that was classified and perhaps it was better not to know. It didn't matter now. Clean slates.

 

"All right then," Steve agreed. "I hope he tests out well." And he meant it too, for the first time since he entered Fury's office. Because the third thing in short supply in their ragtag, mish-mash band of survivors, was any real talent. In his mind, Steve ran through the test results of the cadets he'd already accepted into the program. Teachability was the best you could hope for in most cases.

 

"And I," Fury said in a deceptively light voice, "hope you can handle him if he does. Good luck, Rogers."


	2. Clean Slates

There wasn't much in the way of packing for Tony to do, really. Shaving kit. A paperback he'd read three times already and figured he could probably trade off for booze. Being so far from the civilization – if a civilization still existed – made books a rare commodity. Half the clothes he'd had in his bags Tony'd donated for the rescued civilians – not that he was likely to have much use for business suits nowadays, anyway. The only business meeting he was likely to attend, he figured, would be with Hecate, and for that he wouldn't need to dress to impress.

 

When Cylons struck, Tony had been on his way from the planet Virgon to the planet Caprica, for a meeting with the relatively new council of the Twelve Colonies, regarding industrial support of the war effort. So was – to Tony's unending woe and amusement – Justin Hammer, who imagined himself to be the greatest rival of the Stark Industries. No one had sent a memo to the Stark Industries about that particular fact, though.

 

It had been – looking back now – so easy. An easy life. Not just his breezy existence on the warm and glamorous Virgon. No, even after the Cylon rebellion happened, Tony had been rather safe behind the lines. He'd felt guilty about it, but, as had been pointed out to him repeatedly, rudely, and above all correctly, he was not army material. It had made him somewhat sad at 18. Still, his father's disappointment had made up for it. After the war with the Cylons began, he'd contributed in other ways.

 

But then the cruiser he was on – supposedly safe, guarded by a squadron of gunstar grade battleships – had been intercepted by a large Cylon force. That was almost three months ago. It seemed like three lifetimes. Anything before the battle had an unreal quality to it in his memories. The battle itself had been a nightmare. Aftermath was... like waking up, in one of those old science fiction novels Tony liked; you realized your whole life had been a virtual reality, and you were _actually_ living in your own muck, being fed through a tube and experimented on. That was what it felt like, being here, all of a sudden working as an engineering technician on the gunstar _Eirene_ , day in and day out. On the upside, well, he was alive, wasn't he?

 

The battle had been slaughter. Their small flotilla – two civilian ships and their military escort – had jumped away a relatively short distance through space, in order to regroup and perhaps join with a bigger Colonial force, only to be ambushed again and again. The gunstars were picked off one by one. In the end, the remaining army ships and both civilian crafts had jumped off – a long way off, to a completely different sector of space. Tony wasn't exactly sure what happened there. He was just a bright aviatic engineer with a lot of money and a few saucy stories to his name; he wasn't on the need to know list. The rumor, however, had it that the Cylons had infiltrated the command navigation program, that they had infiltrated the whole Net. Rumors, he had come to realize, were as thick as the subliminal fear on a battleship of any sort. But if the story was true, then the Colonies were, mildly put, fucked in a very ugly way.

 

If he had to guess what happened, Tony would surmise someone had calculated an overly long jump, in a hurry, without the proper equipment. The remains of their flotilla had jumped using their faster-than-light drives. It turned out not all the ships had come out on the other side, and even fewer came out whole and usable. Gunstar _Eirene_ was one of them. The cruiser Tony was on ended up badly damaged. And all of them were, as far as he knew, in an unknown sector of space. Uncharted. The other side of the Red Line. So far away from the known areas that it was possible no human ships had passed this way before. Could they go back? That was the million dollar question. Was there anything to go back to? An even bigger question still.

 

 _Eirene_ rescued the survivors from the wrecked ships, transferred most of the civilians to the two surviving crafts, and drafted the useful ones into service. And this was, incongruously, incomprehensibly, how he had ended up sleeping on a bunk bed above Justin Hammer of all people. This was how he had come to work a menial, mind-numbing maintenance job after the big repairs on _Eirene_ were over. _And I'd have thought being lost in space would be fun_ , he thought over and over again. It was still difficult to believe that, for  the rest of his life, he'd be stuck living in a dormitory, together with people like Scott, Luis, Kurt, Dave, Gale and Dale; it was even more difficult to believe that, names notwithstanding, Dale was not a love child of Dave and Gale.

 

And now this.

 

One of the pilots, Barton, opened the door, stuck his head in. "Lang, Stark, pack your garbage. You passed the test, you're moving." That was all he said before he slammed the door shut behind him. Tony knew Barton in passing, but that was only natural. After the battle and the jump, there were only 5 pilots left on active duty; and Tony's work had him spend almost all his time around the landing bay. Tony had watched them all, as they put their helmets on, as they entered their vipers. He'd listened to the hum of the engines and envied them so profusely he could feel the vibrations of that envy in his whole body. Not parties, not comfort, not even his work; no, what he missed the most about his old life was flying. Flying anything, any kind of craft, anywhere, testing or racing or just taking risks for the hell of it. When all was said and done, flying was his life.

 

 _Pack your garbage, you're moving_. Wild excitement burned its way through him. _All right_ , he thought. _Let's do this._

 

Tony slung his small bag over his shoulder. He was wondering if he was supposed to do the rounds, say good bye to everyone or if a general wave to the dormitory at large would be enough. Lang was, of course, diligently shaking hands with all the Daves and Gales and Dales. Tony wondered if he himself might sneak out while the attention was on the other man. Oh, he could be hyper-social with the best of them. Still, he'd give a lot only to skip talking to Justin Fucking Hammer. The man was insufferable.

 

Tony was already by the door when it opened and chief Jacobson came in. He took Tony's unresisting hand, shook it twice with some reluctance and even slapped him on the back; weakly. He was radiating so much awkwardness Tony instantly felt sorry for him.

 

"I'm sorry to lose a competent engineer, Stark," Jacobson said. "But I know pilots are what we need right now. If you ever change your mind, there will always be a place for you in the tech."

 

"Oh, don't give away his bunk yet, Chief, he'll be back in no time," someone called out, and Tony didn't have to look back. It was Hammer, it was always Hammer. "He was kicked out of the pilot academy after only two months, did you know?" he informed the room at large. All around, the ears were pricking; a good piece of gossip was always appreciated.

 

Tony rolled his eyes. Was it actually possible that some people somewhere _hadn't_ heard that story or some version of it? He wondered if he should just ignore the asshole – Rhodey would – but  this was Hammer, and he woke the worst of Tony's impulses.

 

"Aw, are you still bitching about the fact you didn't make the cut into the academy at all?" he said lightly, looking Hammer up and down. " _Virgon Polytech_ is not a bad school, Justin, nothing to be embarrassed about. It's not MIT – well, obviously – but I'm sure your dad's large donation meant a whole lot in the way of improvements. Of course, it couldn't help you pass the tests here, since, honestly, you couldn't pilot your ass off the toilet seat. Not even with a navigation system. But there's no shame in having _tried_." Cruel, probably, but again, this was Hammer.

 

Hammer opened his mouth to reply, then seemingly spotted something behind Tony and smiled in triumph. Curiosity got better of Tony; he had to glance back. At the door, captain Rogers was giving him a disapproving eye. Well, that was nothing new. The man was gorgeous, but, judging by his usual expression, probably permanently constipated.

 

"Stark, Lang," he said curtly. "Briefing room, ten minutes."

 

Well, Tony could have done without the good Captain overhearing that last bit of inelegance. 

 

 _Unfit for the army_. Fury's words from twenty years back had been ringing in Tony's ears ever since his application was first disqualified. It had to be it. Fury had to have put a stop to it. _Twenty years_ , Tony had thought. _Is this shit going to follow me forever?_ Did Fury, of all people, have to be the commander of the only gunstar ship that survived the jump? The thought was petty. No, it was horrible; he'd been overjoyed to find out how many people from his old life had somehow survived this disaster. There was Rhodey, previously stationed on _Eirene_ with other marines, and now reassigned to _Asclepius_ , the surviving civilian cruiser. It seemed like the luckiest luck of all the lucks imaginable in this universe and any other. Then there was Fury, and Tony'd been overjoyed to see him. He'd been happy to see even Hammer at first, although he was quickly cured of that. Nevertheless, he couldn't believe his transgressions from twenty years ago were still going to haunt him.

 

And then, surprisingly, inexplicably, Fury had found him in the supply rooms, sorting through the salvaged parts. Commander Fury had actually come down to the tech deck to find him, to ask why in the name of hell Tony didn't apply for pilot training and did he have any idea how few people they had were competent at flying at all, let alone equipped with a civilian flying license of the highest order, like his. And that was it. There was an announcement later that people over the age of 35 would also be allowed to take the test, due to the scant number of survivors. Thus, Tony took the test. So did Hammer. So did, he remembered, dozens of others – techs, civilians, even some petty officers. Everyone wanted to fly. Flying was the only way to feel in control, to feel you weren't stuck in this fucking space container for ever and ever. In the tiny world trapped inside a metal shell, flying meant freedom.

 

And now his new captain had to overhear his preteen catfight with Justin. A lovely first impression, Tony thought, on top of Tony's wild reputation from back home and the fact that the Captain most probably knew about his expulsion from the Military Aviation Academy.

 

 _I mustn't screw this up_ , he thought fervently as he stared into the reproachful eyes of Captain Rogers. _Somehow, in any way possible, I have to make this work_. _Because I'd rather fucking die than come back to this dormitory. I have to fly._

 

Rogers was staring back, unrelenting. The intensity of the blue gaze almost made Tony shiver – with anticipation or trepidation or what, he couldn't say.

 

"Yes, sir. Ten minutes." That was Lang's enthusiastic voice. He had the right idea.

 

Feeling like an idiot, Tony saluted. It brought back bad old memories, but what can you do.

 

Still mostly expressionless, Captain nodded curtly and muttered, "As you were."

 

This, Tony decided, was going to be quite a ride.

 

***

 

"You can't bunk there." The dark haired pilot Tony knew only by her callsign, Valkyrie, was saying. "That's where Fandral used to sleep."

 

Another day, another dormitory, Tony mused. Hazing was a part of this, he knew that much, but he was too old for that shit. At 18, sure, he'd gone through it. He'd grinned, partook in a few prank wars, won more often than not. Now all he wanted to do was sigh. He hadn't slept last night. He'd never been too good with excitement and waiting, so he'd spent the night in the landing bay – again – saying good bye to the engines and sorting the repaired and salvaged parts in a more comprehensive manner in order to kill time. Waiting for the results of the test. The feeling was same as 20 years ago; he didn't particularly like it. And now the hazing again.

 

Only, this was a hazing of a different sort. Less good-natured, somehow. Tony had noticed a few photos plastered to the wall near the entrance, as he walked in. Grinning men and women in the jumpsuits, with rank insignia. Very definitely not the men and women he'd been seeing around. And as Thor – a pilot who hung around the tech quite a lot – walked through the door, he touched a picture in passing. So. A ritual, to honor dead friends. It probably also included an element of organic dislike for the newbies who'd come to take their places. Well.

 

That was the dormitory effect. Put a few adults in a dormitory, they'll start acting as if they were in school all over again. Nothing to be done about it. He made an over-the-top contrite face at Valkyrie. "I didn't know," he said, picking up the bag from the bunk he'd previously chosen at random. There were ten bunk beds in neat rows and Tony looked them up and down. "They all belonged to someone or other in the past, though," he continued. "Which means I can pick none of them." And then, flash-fast, he produced his most charming grin and turned to Thor: "Maybe I can sleep with you instead?"

 

Thor was generally a good sport and nice to everyone. He didn't disappoint this time either. He laughed uproariously, and Barton snorted. Even Natasha Romanoff, who rarely said a word to anyone, deigned to turn her head and arch an eyebrow. "And here I thought you had a soft spot for a different engineer, Thor," she noted.

 

Thor just grinned and sprawled on the bed. The bed squeaked unhappily. "There's enough love here for the whole department," he said. Tony rolled his eyes and laughed together with everyone, and that, he hoped, was that for now. Up until they chose to put itching powder into his sheets or something equally mature.

 

This was when Scott Lang walked in. He looked around quickly and tossed his backpack onto another apparently vacant bunk.

 

"Hey," Barton said. "You can't have that one. It's Volstagg's."

 

Tony knew Lang, although they weren't friends or anything; the kid was pretty decent. Now he stood there, looking a little lost. Two nanoseconds before, he had been beaming at Tony in the tech dormitory, when both their names had been called. Tony didn't think Scott knew he was being hazed right now, and, to Tony's disgust, something akin to protectiveness rose in his own chest.

 

"Aw, lay off, Barton," he snapped, more crossly then he'd intended. "The kid's gotta sleep somewhere."

 

"Oh, look, the old man's taking the baby cadet under his wing," Barton commented. "How touching."

 

"Hey, I can take care of myself, but thanks," Scott said lightly and sprawled onto the bunk he'd picked.

 

"No, that one's _actually_ Volstagg's," someone threw in dryly. It was the guy Tony knew as Falcon. "Volstagg's not dead. He's over in the medbay."

 

"Yeah, and he'd better come back soon, too," Barton said, "he owes me money."

 

"He owes everyone money, Clint. Playing cards against him is pretty much a crime."

 

"Well, then," the kid said, without showing any intent to get up, "we can play triad for the bed the minute he gets out."

 

"He's got both distal and proximal fractures on his right forearm", said a hesitant but mildly dry voice at the door. "Not to mention a dislocated left shoulder. I don't think he'll be playing cards anytime soon." This was when Tony first noticed the young doctor that had been traveling on the cruiser together with him and Hammer. Doctor Banner, he remembered. At first he was drafted into the medical personnel of _Eirene_ , but now he was wearing a cadet jumpsuit too. _Huh_ , Tony thought. _Interesting_. Because if they were willing to lose a medic in order to gain a combat pilot, Fury evidently expected things to get pretty heated pretty quickly. The excitement that arose in Tony stomach was probably an inappropriate reaction to danger. Well. That was the dormitory effect for you. Turned you into a teen.

 

"Not that one!" both Valkyrie and Barton crowed shrilly as Banner approached an unoccupied bed. Tony rolled his eyes. They could at least try to think of something else. These people were going to give him a headache, but, if nothing else, they were marginally more lively than all the Daves and Gales.

 

"Um..." Banner started, looking around in mild confusion, and Tony felt immediately sorry for him.

 

It seemed he wasn't alone, because Romanoff turned. She seemed super serious. "Guys. Leave the nuggets alone." She said it too coolly to sound exactly exasperated. A miracle of miracles, the others did fall silent. "Doc, take whichever bed no one is sitting on at the moment. Anyone got a problem with that, they can come talk to me." All of a sudden, everyone seemed to be busy with something. So. Natasha's the scary one around here. Interesting.

 

Tony realized he was still holding his bag in his hand. Oh, for fuck's sake. He looked around. "So, I just pick one? Which one is Cap's?" he asked. "I sure don't want to usurp that one."

 

Romanoff blinked at him slowly. "Steve's got his own space."

 

And his next thought was accompanied with inner arching of an eyebrow. _Steve?_ he thought. So, he was friends with his pilots, was he? That wasn't something Tony had expected, judging from appearances.

 

 _Well then_ , he thought dryly, _that's all I need to do to get a private room. Become a captain. Okay._

 

***

 

Tony couldn't say he exactly disliked Captain Rogers. The man didn't seem malicious or abusive or particularly ill-tempered, and he was certainly not a pain to look at. He was, Tony mused, kind of sour, though, uptight, maybe a little boring; none of these qualities were unforgivable, but Tony found the guy irksome all the same.

 

It had started at the new cadets' orientation meeting. No, actually, it had started back in the tech dormitory, when Cap overheard his catty exchange with Hammer. _That look he gave me_ , Tony thought.

 

First impressions weren't so important, though, were they? Tony could handle a flyer craft like a dream. He'd done his share of flying under bridges and slipping through canyons sideways and racing up and down the cliffs on Gamenon, and all the other stunts no one in their right mind would try. Rich and bored, newspapers had dubbed him, but although he'd grin brilliantly, and nod, and _own_ the epithets, in his head he'd said: _Not bored. Not really. It's not that._ Flying was what you did when you got too hoarse from screaming on the inside. Of course, boredom and alcohol had a hand in it too. The point was, he was an expert flyer, he had a license of the highest order a civilian could have, and despite all his stunts, he didn't manage to have it taken away. (This was where 'rich' came into play, he thought cynically). In any case, gravity notwithstanding, flying a viper couldn't be that different from flying a planet-side vessel. The controls were very much alike, with just a few differences. All he needed to do was get himself into one of the birds, and be himself, be brilliant, shine. Show Rogers and Fury and everyone he could be useful, indispensable. So the first impressions didn't really matter all that much, right? Right?

 

Only, Cap basically had the power to ground him permanently before Tony even put a foot in the cockpit.

 

"Any suggestions as to how to impress the good Captain?" he asked half-joking, looking at Natasha, the Cap-friend, the one who apparently was on first name basis with Rogers. Tony leaned against the bedpost and smirked and tried to be cute; it tended to have a certain effect on women. By now it was practically his second nature. Lieutenant Romanoff gave him a cool up and down and decided to take his question with a modicum of seriousness.

 

"Don't get too cocky," she said. "Try to shut up. Listen to what he's saying." She considered for a moment. "And _please_ don't try to charm him."

 

Weirdly enough, she didn't sound all that unfriendly.

 

And now Rogers was at the lectern in the briefing room. His voice was obviously pertaining to seriousness, but his blue eyes were dancing, his face livelier than usual. Tony'd seen him like this before – in the landing bay, right before getting into his viper: not cheerful, no, but energetic, _alive._

 "I need all of you to know this is no game." He was trying to look dead stern, but the word that came to Tony's mind instead was _snippy_. "Whatever you think you know, forget it. Whatever you were in your previous lives – is irrelevant. You think you know something about flying? I need you to bury that notion. You were picked because I think you're able to learn. That's all. You are new cadets. You've no idea how to fly a viper. You've no idea how to fly _anything_."

 

As he spoke he looked from face to face, staring hard into the cadets' eyes, trying to drill his words into their minds. But during the last few sentences, his eyes caught Tony's and wouldn't let go. Tony's reaction was his usual, semi-amused one: a wry grin, a cocked eyebrow, and too late Natasha's words came back to him, and he tried to go for super-serious, which probably looked even more mocking. A flash of anger would have been better in Tony's book, but Rogers just frowned and looked away.

 

Captain then went on to explain about what will be expected of them, what they will be studying. Mainly basic flight and combat tactics, Tony learned. But before they even set  foot in the cockpit, they were going to review everything in the one ancient flight simulator they had aboard _Eirene_. There would be group lectures. Personal instruction. Tests. It was going to be intensive, and it was going to be hurried, but Captain Rogers indented to put them through the basic flight training just as if they were at the Academy. He'd pass them if they deserved it, he'd flunk them if they made one mistake too many; there were going to be no leniencies just because they were possibly the last remnant of the human race, and the supply of new cadets was therefore somewhat limited.

 

As he looked around the room, his eyes were piercing, vigorous. Still, whenever they lighted on Tony's face, all of a sudden they seemed set in stone. Tony could feel almost visceral dislike there, thinly covered up. _Captain is  fair. He can be tough, but he's truly fair_ , Thor had said with his usual earnestness, when he joined Tony and Natasha's conversation. And Natasha had just nodded. _He judges based on merit._

So, Rogers was probably trying to be fair now too, but – Tony guessed – Fury's intervention on his behalf wasn't exactly helping. At best, Captain may be trying not to form opinions preemptively, and failing.

 

Tony was never too good at dealing with dislike. When it came from someone like Hammer, sure, he could bask in it like a cat. But when someone on the 'decent person' part of the spectrum dared show it, Tony's mind suddenly went all _trumpets, pennants, call the regiments in_. He needed to change that state of affairs, to charm the person into submission or punish them relentlessly for their effrontery; possibly both at the same time. One thing he didn't know how to do was let go. It wasn't just about first impressions. He couldn't leave it alone. He had to pick at the perceived dislike, had to prod and poke, like prodding a sore tooth with his tongue, like picking at a scabbed-over knee.

 

"Any questions?" Captain Rogers asked at the end of  his short speech.

 

"So, we getting a pension plan or what?" Scott peeped up, with a toothy grin, and Tony laughed out. This gained him a short, sharp look from Rogers, while Scott somehow got a suppressed but amused smile.

 

Rogers' face straightened almost instantly, but his eyes still glinted, almost mischievously. "Your pension plan is as follows," he bit off. "Elysium Fields if you're religious; airlock, flag and oblivion if you aren't. After ten years of service, you get ten more. You don't like this, you go back to tech and continue checking the deck for lose screws." Tony felt amusement stir inside him, so he tamped it down and shot a wry look at Rogers. Rogers caught it. Returned it, double sized.

 

And, instead of planning how to make this pass as smoothly as possible, what Tony thought instead was: _It's on!_

 

***

 

Steve  couldn't stop looking at Stark. He tried desperately to hide it, to keep an impassive face and avoid his eyes, but his gaze was magnetically drawn to the man. It wasn't about physical appearance, although Stark's was pleasant enough. It had something to do with the way Stark sprawled in his chair, all effortlessness and easy smiles and ironic glances at his fellow cadets. It was as if he owned not only the chair itself, but also the briefing room and everyone in it. It tickled something inside Steve, and he didn't know if it was irritation or a prickle of curiosity. _Interesting_ , his gut seemed to say. Well, Stark was really something, no doubt about that, but Steve was going to ignore it, and instruct him, and hopefully make a competent combat pilot out of him; that was all that mattered. He wasn't going to pay him any special attention; it wouldn't be right to the others and could only be harmful for the man himself. It wouldn't hurt him to learn not to be the centre of attention for once.

 

Stark, however, had other plans.

 

With a few quick strokes, Steve sketched a picture of a viper on his instruction board. "Who can tell me why vipers are shaped like this?" he asked with an inner sigh. _I'm really, really not qualified to do this_ , he thought. He had been an instructor in basic flight and combat tactics at one point, true, but intro to engineering sure as hell wasn't his forte. He wasn't bad at applied science, had even enjoyed it at the Academy, but that was many years and many battles ago. So he was going to keep this simple.

 

In the first row, a cadet improbably named Quentin Quint raised his hand, and Steve pointed at him.

 

"In order to be aero-dynamical," the boy – the guy, Steve corrected himself – said. Quint was 19, and he didn't look much younger than that. It was probably just Steve, suddenly feeling too old.

 

But Stark, who was sitting right next to Quint, started rolling his eyes practically at the very moment Quint opened his mouth to say 'in order to'. Stark started talking over the kid: "It's designed for both space flight and to be able to withstand various types of atmosphere, that's basic, come _on_." It was just possible he thought Steve had pointed at him, but Steve somehow thought that wasn't the case. Most likely he wanted to show off. Stark paused, however, reconsidered, and then he mellowed down his tone. "It doesn't need to be aerodynamically shaped for space flight," he explained. "For space flight you don't need the tail, the elevons, the rudder. You don't need wings." He gave a mock-apologetic shrug, looking back over his shoulder at the rest of the cadets. He grinned. "No drag." The other guys actually chuckled at that.

 

Steve was watching in mild fascination, as what was supposed to be an answer to a very simple question somehow slowly turned into a lecture on the basic principles of aeronautics. Just a few sentences, but Stark wasn't addressing him at all. He was talking to the room at large. Almost as if it was a practiced performance. It wasn't about what info he was conveying, it was the way he was doing it. Steve found himself wanting to listen to this man recount all the things Steve already knew.

 

At that moment Stark seemed to remember the Captain was there at all. A flicker of an eye back at Steve, barely perceptible; and then he wrapped up the sentence and turned back. Twisted a corner of his mouth up, at Steve, in a manner that didn't seem quite mocking, but didn't seem quite _not_ either. Steve had no idea what it was supposed to mean. Still, he was sorely tempted to just ask Stark to finish the lecture instead. Of course, it wouldn't do to put one of the cadets on the spot like that. Or to elevate him above the others.

 

Some of it must have shown on his face, because Stark gave him a hard look and a barely perceptible nod. It was almost as if he'd read Steve's mind, and Steve found it slightly disconcerting.

 

"Cadet Stark," he said in a measured voice. "A word."

 

Stark's face changed. He barely waited until they stepped outside the briefing room, out of the others' hearing. "I screwed up," he stated. "Didn't I? I should shut up, shouldn't I?"

 

"That would be a pretty good idea, yes," Steve said and tried not to let himself be amused. "At least for a sec."

 

Stark just looked at him. Steve found his gaze drawn to those big brown eyes, shining with intelligence. There was no impertinence there for the moment.

 

"You're not in trouble," he said quickly, understanding, and observed a tiny softening around Stark's eyes. Then he decided to stop looking so closely. It was a bad idea. "I was actually wondering if you'd be willing to do an impromptu presentation?" he said. And then: "You don't have to," he added. "But you seem to have a pretty good grasp of the subject, and you know how to explain it in simple terms too."

 

"I've given like a million popular lectures on the stuff, 'course I know how to dumb it down," Stark said flippantly and immediately spoiled the good impression that was beginning to elbow its way into Steve's mind.

 

"Let's see how this goes," Steve said in a neutral voice. "If it works out, I may ask you to do it a few more times."

 

"I always wanted to be a teacher's pet." Stark grinned. Steve thought it best to ignore this as he explained a bit about what the lesson should cover.

 

"This," he said when they got back in, "is cadet Stark," – he deliberately dropped the first name, although everyone probably  knew it anyway – "who used to work for our tech department these past two months, and who is also an aerospace engineer. He is going to give a presentation and give you a basic introduction into the theory of aerodynamics, astrodynamics, and also viper craft design and engineering, if we have some time left."

 

What Steve didn't say was this: here's Tony Stark, the playboy, the industrialist, the billionaire, the person who was on his way to meet with the ruling council of the Twelve fucking Colonies when our fleet was attacked. Now, out here, they were all nobodies, they were the hands-on skills they had, nothing more and nothing less. No reason to play Stark's status up; he probably had a too high an opinion of himself as it was.

 

Steve wondered if he was being unfair.

 

After this brief introduction, he settled into a chair in the back and let himself be absorbed by the already familiar material. But what drew his attention more and more was the animation on Stark's face, the glint in his eyes as he flirted with the principles of physics, the easy grins as he courted the engines he described. It was obvious he loved the subject.

 

A fascinating man, Steve thought, and was immediately irritated with himself.

 

***

 

"I can't play these games, Nat. I'm no good at this."

 

Steve'd caught Natasha in the hallway and practically dragged her into his office. Now they were both leaning against the edge of the desk, half turned towards each other.

 

"Let me reiterate," Natasha said slowly. "On the first day of school you took one of your little students and put him in front of the class and let him lecture the others? Gods, Steve, as if he doesn't stand out as it is. They're going to either start worshiping him or eat him alive."

 

Steve shrugged apologetically. "Well, there's a reason I quit teaching, back home." He thought for a moment how better to explain it. "Nat, these aren't cadets. They're practically draftees. We have one ex-hacker and one ex-smuggler, for gods' sake. And now I'm supposed to turn them into pilots? Sure, why not. But what I want to _do_ here is convey the absolutely necessary minimum of knowledge in the best possible way. And I've got a feeling Stark can do that better than I can, at least when it comes to science and engineering. So let him do that. I don't care about anything else. I'm no good at classroom psychology. Only at leading people in battle."

 

"You're selling yourself short," Natasha observed coolly, and it didn't sound like a compliment at all. "It's easier that way, you know."

 

"You think?" Steve let his eyes fall to the ground thoughtfully. "Maybe," he admitted.

 

"Steve, it's exactly like commanding a unit," Natasha said. "A blend of intimidation and inspiration. We all know you can do that."

 

"I can do that," Steve said noncommittally. "But I don't see how being a den mother compares."

 

Natasha raised a hand, as if to pat him on the arm, then let it fall. "Is this what we are doing now?" she asked softly. "You complaining that you don't know how to teach and me trying to be reassuring? Really?"

 

Steve felt a nascent smile upon his lips. "I thought we were launching guerrilla warfare against Cylons, but apparently I need to learn how to babysit first."

 

"Guerrilla warfare?"

 

"That's off the record, lieutenant" said Steve with a small smile. "At least that's what I think Fury's going to do." A beat. "Don't tell anyone?"

 

Natasha snorted. "What do you take me for?"

 

"So just Clint, then."

 

"Clint won't talk."

 

 They sank into a comfortable silence, and Steve let his mind wonder for a while. Then: "Nat. What did you think of Stark, though?"

 

She inclined her head so that her red hair fell over her face. "He seems like a bit of an asshole, but maybe he's not that bad. Honestly, I can't get a read on him." Her smirk was sharp. "Too much bullshit floating around the surface, clouding the view."

 

"Yeah," Steve said thoughtfully. "That's pretty much the impression I got. Will you keep an eye on him for me?"

 

Natasha arched an eyebrow. "Steve, whatever he's like, he's a fellow pilot, or near enough. I'm not your spy."

 

"Will you tell me what you find out?"

 

Her snort was barely perceptible. "You know I will."


	3. On the Nature of Dislike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chief petty officer Darryl Jacobson in here is Darryl from the short Thor clips, btw. This kind of has Thor/Darryl for funnies, but it's such a minor thing I'm not even sure I should tag it.

 

Don't get cocky and don't try to charm him, Tony thought to himself later that evening. Oh, good _job_.

 

He missed Rhodey sorely, but there was no way to call him right now. Rhodey was stationed on _Asclepius_ – the surviving civilian cruiser – with a unit of his marines, but the calls were limited to officers and reserved for urgent situations. Oh, well. Tony found himself almost missing the tech department. There, at least, there was an impromptu bar you could hang out in after your shift was done. Here, the pilots had their rec room, obviously, but Tony wasn't a pilot yet. Neither were, for that matter, the other new cadets.

 

They chatted for a while. It was a companionship born out of necessity. Tony wasn't sure he liked it.

 

"We could play cards," Scott said hopefully, and Daisy, one of the Jessicas, a guy named Cage and Quentin Quint said okay. Not Banner, though. Banner seemed happy to sprawl on his bunk with a book. Tony hesitated for a moment. Then, ignoring the card players, he walked over.

 

"Wanna trade?"

 

Banner put his book down, slowly. "Trade what?"

 

Tony showed him his own ratty paperback. "Books. Wanna trade?"

 

Banner adjusted his glasses and glanced at the title. " _Dogs of Wind_?" he read aloud, skeptically. "Part three of _The Other Name of Earth_ saga?"

 

"Hey, my Mallory is cavorting through outer space together with the rest of my lost baggage. I have to remember to file a complained with the cruiser company, by the way. Anyway, so it's _TONoE_ or nothing. Also, doctors are snobs. Evidently. What's wrong with a bit of a space opera? Apart from the fact that we are living one and it's way less fun."

 

Banner's lips constricted in quiet amusement. "I actually gave up on _TONoE_ after the book two. I can't stomach dogs dying."

 

"Finally someone who speaks English." Tony made a show of looking around, then leaned towards Banner. "Zed didn't die," he whispered conspiratorially. "Zed _lives._ And I can tell you what happens in book three if you're interested. Scoot over. What have you got there?"

 

Less reluctantly, Banner moved away to make some space for Tony, then turned his book around, showing him the title. "It's just a medical journal."

 

"Yes. Good gods, _yes._ Something new. Thank you."

***

 

They got bored in the dorm eventually, so in the end Tony dragged the doc over to the tech bar. Banner didn't seem overly enthusiastic, but he shrugged and agreed to come. Maybe because, by the unwritten rules, they weren't supposed to go. There _was_ an air of quiet irreverence about the man.

 

Aboard a ship of the gunstar class, pilots had their R&R and the marines had their own, on their deck. In the normal circumstances, however, techs were much fewer in numbers – just the necessary maintenance personnel. War changed this. Repairs planetside became fewer and farther between, and the number of staff grew by necessity. These numbers became further inflated after their impromptu fleet jumped over the Red Line and _Eirene_ took in survivors. There was suddenly enough techs for three full shifts, and the old common room was pitifully small.

 

This was how what techs lovingly called their speak-easy was born. An underused storage space was adapted. Now it was always stuffy and packed with people. It was loud in that special, infuriating way that came from no one shouting and _everyone_ talking at the exact same time. The din helped drown the buzz in your head. Tony suspected this was why everyone came here to unwind. The buzz in your head could get rather loud if you allowed yourself to think about the immensity of space, about the flimsy engines and the thin walls that kept the outside at bay; to think about how you had no idea where you were and how you probably won't see the real civilization ever again. Alcohol helped burn the deathly fear out of your stomach too.

 

"Let me introduce you to everyone," he said loudly when he and Bruce walked in. The room was rather packed, and the booze was what you could covertly ferment behind the engines, so bringing a doctor here wasn't such an insane idea, actually. They should have had one on retainer. "Bruce, these are... mainly Dales and Gales. On second thought, don't even bother memorizing the names. Everyone, this is Bruce Banner, whom you already know from your physicals." Tony put a proprietary hand on Bruce's shoulder.

 

"I somehow feel I've been adopted already," Bruce stated with mild dryness Tony had come to recognize as his own idiosyncratic mode of expression.

 

Tony peered into his face in the semidarkness of the club. "Well, were you? Adopted?", he asked. "Wait, I feel that's an inappropriate question. Huh. Anyway, were you?"

 

Bruce tried to hide a smile, unsuccessfully, which was a win.

 

"Drink?" someone offered, and Tony nodded.

 

"Drink? _What_ drink?" Bruce asked skeptically, swirling the liquid in the metal cup.

 

"Just... you know, a _drink_. Of a general sort," someone said.

 

Bruce sniffed the liquid, crinkled up his nose, then took a cautious sip. "At least no one's gone blind so far," he said. " _I'd_ know."

 

Tony downed his, not that he needed the reassurance, and immediately got a refill. A few minutes passed in noncommittal chatting and the usual semi-rude remarks.

 

"Tony, how's Scotty?" a concerned voice asked then, and Tony just about had the time to say, "Hey, Luis. He's fine, he's good, he sends his love," when Hammer absolutely had to surface from the throng of people and butt in.

 

"Tony! Decided to honor us with your presence, have you now? How's life in the upper crust? Do tell, do tell." Hammer really couldn't let it go, but Tony decided not to play.

 

"And that over there is Hammer, Bruce. Just pretend he's not there. I'd say forget him, but that's proven impossible so far, more's the pity." Bruce laughed at this, and Tony felt pleased with himself.

 

Which was when he thought he felt someone's gaze on him. It prickled at the back of his scull like a mosquito. He glanced back.

 

His new Captain was eying him across the room with a scowl on his face. He wasn't a regular visitor down here. Apart from Thor, who, if the rumors were true, came down here following his heart, and apart from Valkyrie, who always followed the booze, pilots rarely ventured this way. Higher ranking officer definitely didn't.

 

The big man's presence was impossible to ignore. It burned in Tony's conscience like a torch. For some reason, he stood out, with waves of people breaking off him and around him. Tony looked away, but a moment later glanced back. He couldn't help it. Cap caught his gaze, held it.

 

Cap started towards him, looking as if he wanted to say something. Crowd parted for him almost by default. He gave Tony a perfectly serious, perfectly straightforward once over – so serious and straightforward, actually, Tony thought, that it must have been an act. It was illegal, of course, to brew spirits, let alone sell or buy them. Still, if you did it off duty, officers looked the other way. That was the reason they didn't come here in the first place. Easier to ignore the practice that way, and people needed the booze in order to let off some steam. But if Cap wanted to push it, he could get Tony disciplined for being here, of course. Tony was becoming too aware of the drink in his hand, so he gave a defiant shrug and downed it. It was his third cup.

 

Cap didn't dislike him, not exactly, he decided. The man was supposedly fair, or so everyone said; that entailed not making preemptive judgments, didn't it? Only, Tony wasn't presenting himself in the best of lights either, coming here, getting tipsy, being a jerk to Hammer yet _again_ in Cap's hearing. It didn't matter that Hammer was insufferable and deserved it all; you always ended up looking worse when he was involved.

 

Tony sighed. It _was_ dislike. Or maybe... He had no idea, and he had even less idea as to why he cared what Captain thought, but somehow he did. Whatever it was, it was driving him crazy. Tony had managed to drink a lot in a short time, and this stuff was motor-oil strong; he could feel it burning in his gut, making his tongue run loose. The subtle desperation of the people around him was both infectious and suffocating. The beat of it in his ears was louder than the white noise of general chatter.

 

He's just a superior officer, so what, Tony tried telling himself. He had no idea why he was being this nervous. Nervous, yes, but also a little pissed, because... did Cap really have to come down here in order to bust him? Now, on his first day? What was the big idea, to kick him off the force before Tony even started?

 

Nerves and anger... That was a lethal combo for him. A highly volatile chemical compound.

 

Cap was suddenly much closer. Tony wasn't sure when that happened. The man seemed about to say something, but Tony beat him to it. "What's a pretty guy like you doing at a place like this?" The question fell out of his mouth of its own volition and hung in the air like poison gas. He had this tendency to spurt whatever words crossed his mind at any given time; especially when he felt the metal walls pressing down on him this intensely.

 

And Rogers was gorgeous, in that perfect, distant way that made you want to make a pass at him, not because you expected it to lead to anything but because you wanted to see a reaction.

 

Well, that would at least ground them firmly in the dislike territory and be done with it, it seemed. That way Tony wouldn't have to wonder.

 

He'd been like this at the academy too, in those glorious two months that the experience  lasted. He'd grow so jittery in the face of authority that he seemingly did everything in his power to make the situation worse. He'd thought he'd grown out of it in twenty years, but no.

 

"Come again?"

 

 _Def dislike_ , Tony decided then and there, trying to interpret the look in the blue eyes staring down at him. He wondered how long exactly the man had been there, and how many of Tony's semi-crude remarks he'd overheard. This last one about Hammer was like a cherry on top. Tony was determined not to give two fucks, but the nauseating feeling in his stomach belied this.

 

Banner's hand on his forearm kept him from saying something even more stupid. The reply that died on Tony's lips was: What's a pretty guy like you doing at a place like this, _sir_. Captain's face stopped him in his tracks. It effectively killed off all of Tony's attempts to make light and charm his way out of this one.

 

"Cadet," Cap began, rather softly, but his voice seemed to possess a certain sharp quality that cut through the surrounding noise. "You're not military, yet, and you're new. So, I'm going to be mild. This is your first demerit. You will report to my office first thing tomorrow, for your disciplinary measures."

 

 _Okay_ , Tony thought, _this isn't so bad._ From the depths of his mind, a correct reply surfaced. "Yes, sir."

 

Cap nodded once for good measure. "Now, where's Chief Darryl, do you know?"

 

Tony had no idea. Thor's arrival saved him from having to think of something remotely non-brainless to say.

 

"No, really, where's Darryl? He's not in his office, I looked," the big guy commented, leaning against the makeshift bar. Everyone knew Thor around here, and absolutely no one was surprised to see him. "Gimme a drink," the blond pilot demanded and the requested abomination was dutifully poured as a few voices of the Gale-Dale think-tank explained that Chief was most probably in the storage area, working doubles in his free time.

 

Tony turned to Rogers. "There's your answer then," he said, and added, "Captain," to stay on the safe side, even though it was evidently too late for that.

 

He registered Bruce tugging at his arm somewhat frantically. "We're, er, we're _leaving_ now," the doctor said pointedly. And, when Tony failed to get a hint: "Come _on_ , Tony."

 

***

 

Steve had come looking for Chief Petty Officer Jacobson because he didn't know what to think of Stark and he couldn't stop puzzling over him. He had a vague idea that consulting Stark's previous head of departmeent might help. But, upon not finding Darryl in his office, Steve had followed his gut and ended up in the illicit tech bar.

 

Instead of Chief, he spotted Stark and found himself mesmerized once again. Wherever the man went, he made ripples. He certainly wasn't a one to stand in a corner and have a quiet drink. Men gravitated towards him, laughed at his jokes. Stark himself was cordially dismissive. _These are mainly Dales and Gales..._ Was it really possible that, after working with them for two months, he still didn't know their names? Steve was mildly appalled. Stark's mocking _was_ generally benign, but occasionally his eyes would glint more keenly and a remark would cut deep. Then he would be back at being his whimsical self, but there was always something sharp and distant about him. Steve couldn't tell what exactly, but it was very much like the way he was in the classroom. One moment he was explaining something patiently and quite kindly, the next he was making wisecracks about 'dumbing things down' on the side.

 

Now he'd enticed the mild-mannered doctor Banner too. Dragged him down here because he apparently needed a _yet_ bigger audience. Steve didn't _like_ the way Stark was with people. And yet something wouldn't let him look away. Those brown eyes were more alive than any Steve had seen lately. His energy was magnetic.

 

Steve didn't quite know why he went over to talk to Stark – to warn him that coming to the bar wasn't acceptable for cadets, maybe, he thought later – or to ask after Darryl. Perhaps even to have a chat with him in a non-official setting, try to see what he was actually like. That would have been a disastrous idea. Steve shouldn't have had that one drink; it had been vile anyway.

 

Stark's inappropriate quip was above all silly, and the man was clearly drunk. Steve was mildly annoyed, but that, at least he knew how to deal with. He put his 'captain' face on. Stark had even looked somewhat chastised at the end of the conversation.

 

Afterwards, Steve found Chief Darryl in the storage area. Darryl seemed surprised to see him, or, more precisely, seemed surprised to see _him_ , of all people, as much as Darryl could look surprised at all.

 

"What can you tell me about Tony Stark?" Steve asked without much preamble, after they sat down on two crates facing each other. He knew Darryl Jacobson only superficially, but, he mused, everyone knew Jacobson only superficially.

 

Darryl's brow furrowed for a moment. Then, after what seemed like an eternity of thinking, he shrugged. "He's all right." He seemed oddly distracted. He kept glancing over Steve's shoulder, as if he was expecting someone.

 

Steve was immediately sorry he'd bothered him. He should have sent Natasha. Or Thor. He shouldn't have left Thor waiting in the corridor. Maybe some congenial intimidation would work here. "This is off the record, between you and me," Steve added. "Just your professional opinion."

 

"Huh." Jacobson seemed genuinely puzzled at his request. Then: "Stark's a fine engineer. I don't know about piloting. But around here he did his job real well, as long as I let him do what he wanted."

 

That, at least, matched Steve's impression to a 't'. Competent at what he did – competent and utterly impossible as a person. Steve found himself starting to chuckle at Darryl's remark; stopped. Chief wasn't joking. "Thank you, Darryl," he said politely instead.

 

Chief blinked, made an apparent effort to focus on the conversation. "He's not a soldier," he went on, as if every word cost him money. "But you know that already, sir. And these days no one is. So that's pretty much it, I think."

 

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "Pretty much." Darryl nodded. Steve nodded back. The silence stretched. Every pause was just a tad longer than necessary. Uncomfortable, Steve wondered if he should just get up and leave. Still, the conversation seemed to be going on despite both their wills, so he decided it would be rude to smile and nod and get lost. "So he didn't cause you any trouble?" he asked because he now felt somehow obliged to keep going.

 

Jacobson almost laughed. It looked weird on him." Everyone causes trouble," he said. He suddenly looked infinitely exasperated – with life, with the military, with himself, with the war and Cylons and the Red Line and all of creation. It was the most reaction Steve has ever gotten out of him. "But unlike some of the others, he was useful enough." He said it as if 'useful' was the best compliment a man could give another man.

 

"Yeah," Steve repeated, for lack of something better to say. He thought this whole training thing was going to turn into a big old disaster pretty fast. "I'm not sure that's going to be enough."  


He probably shouldn't have said that; still, he knew that, with Darryl, this would go not further, if nothing else.

 

Darryl regarded him with apparent apathy. "Sir, if you feel like giving him back, I'm perfectly happy to have him."

 

Surprised at his own reaction, Steve found himself annoyed at this. He wasn't in the habit of giving up what he started, and especially not giving up on people. At first he'd thought Clint was an asshole, and Gamora was difficult to work with, Quill was unreliable and Brunnhilde unpredictable and stubborn. Steve had learned to work with all of them. So, perhaps Stark _was_ arrogant and self-absorbed. So were other people. He was not the only one. The fact that those particular qualities set Steve's teeth on edge was his own problem. _Hope you can handle him_ , Fury had said. Well, Steve hoped so too; he intended to try. With a firmer hand, maybe, or... He had to keep his distance and try different approaches, try kindness, maybe, too. It worked with many people and it took least effort of all, for Steve.

 

"No, thank you, I think I'm good," he was saying when Thor emerged from behind a bulkhead some distance away. It seemed he'd gotten impatient.

 

"Hey, Darryl!" His grin was so big it could encompass half the world.

 

Steve saw Chief Petty Officer close his eyes for a second, as if bracing himself; he heard a soft t exhalation. "Hey, Thor." With even less enthusiasm, that.

 

"Is Thor bothering you?" Steve asked quietly.

 

Darryl frowned for a moment, his shrug barely perceptible. "No, no," he said dutifully. "Thor's all right."

 

Steve left them then, Thor putting a cordial arm round Darryl's shoulders and dragging him back towards the tech bar, and Darryl letting himself be hugged and dragged. He seemed too resigned to protest.

 

That night, Steve really wanted to know why he'd bristled on the inside when Darryl suggested sending Stark back to the tech department.

 

***

Hangover hit Tony like a crowbar in the head before he even opened his eyes in the morning. It took him a second to remember he wasn't at home, the feeling was so familiar. He clawed his way to consciousness – and out of bed; splashing his face with icy water helped somewhat. Still, a gimlet – tool, not cocktail – kept boring holes in his stomach as the last night slowly came back to him.

 

The problem with playing at being a soldier was that Tony felt exactly like that: as if he were playing. Playacting.

 

He hesitated in front of Captain's office before entering, took a breath, tried to brace himself.

 

He now attempted to remember that breath-catching, starry-eyed feeling he'd had when he first enrolled in the Academy, but two decades of carefully practiced cynicism couldn't be so easily shaken off. It wasn't even that he wasn't sorry – he knew he'd acted inappropriately, and he'd happily submit himself  to whatever disciplinary measures...

 

It was the apologies he hated, dreaded. If only he could skip that part, possibly sit through a yelling, and then go get to scrubbing toilets or whatever. He took a deep breath. Knocked and stepped in. It was 7 a. m. sharp.

 

Well, he was trying.

 

Tony saluted crisply, to the best of his rusty-for-20-years abilities and stayed like that. He wasn't a soldier. He'd never been a soldier. Not a good fit for the army, Fury had said, back when. Well, the man knew what he was about.

 

Tony had pictured Rogers behind a miles-long desk, with impassive face and stapled fingers, dishing out punishments like a clerk at the entry-level of Hades. He found the man all flustered, in a sweaty T-shirt, wiping his face with a towel. Practically radiating heat.

 

Tony frowned. "Did you just go for a run? It's nice to get a bit of fresh air first thing in the morning, eh?" It escaped his mouth before he could put a stop to it. "Sir," he added lamely, for good measure, and immediately wanted to kick himself in the teeth. It was remarks like this one that landed him in trouble. Suddenly, it all felt so unreal he half-expected himself to wake up, back in his old home on Virgon.

 

Captain let the towel fall to the floor with a tiny splash, then looked at Tony and sighed. "At ease," he said.

 

Tony let his hand fall by his side and relaxed his stance minuscully. All his muscles still sang with tautness. Rogers walked around his desk. It was small; the whole office was a lot smaller than Tony had pictured – and sank into a chair. He gave Tony a flat look, then nodded toward the other chair. Tony took it, gratefully; folded into it. Belatedly, he remembered he was probably supposed to politely sit on the edge, his spine arrow-straight. Or something. Well, too late for that.

 

"I _am_ a fan of the fresh air, incidentally" Captain said deadpan, fixing those eyes on Tony, unblinking.

 

"Uh," Tony began, fighting all the while for his lips not to twitch into a probably-inappropriate smirk. "About last night. I'm...", he felt his lips stretch into a grin out of pure tension – and gave up. Suddenly he wondered why he cared this much, why he was being so anxious. He'd dealt with a lot worse in his time. With men much more powerful. Men who held fate of whole colonies in their hands. Tony'd be able to stare them down without a blink.

 

This was different.

 

He sighed and buried his face into his hands for a moment. Took a deep breath, calmed down. He gave his new Captain a tired look, then jumped to his feet, started pacing.

 

"I was a little drunk. And a lot stupid," he said. "And I'm not used to having superiors, either. It's been twenty years since I had to call anyone _sir_ instead of the other way around. Wait, that probably sounded wrong."

 

"It sounded genuine," Cap said. "Sit back down, Stark."

 

Tony made himself stop. Sat down. Met Rogers' gaze halfway. What was it that made him feel this way? The fact the Cap held Tony's fate in his hands? No, it wasn't that. Everything in Tony reeled in protest at the thought. This was just a nervous reaction, probably. An acute fear of dying out here, in this space bucket, without ever seeing the stars again. Something understandable like that. Hangover. Lack of sleep. (That one was always a good excuse.) 

 

It wasn't something in those blue eyes, it absolutely wasn't. Or if it was – and it _wasn't_ – Tony had a burning desire to prove them wrong. All the expectations and assumptions – they offended him; he wanted to scrap them. He wanted to be someone else, for once. Fresh starts, all that bullshit.

 

Or perhaps he should just let everyone be right; he could be an asshole and be out of here in a minute. Out of _all_ of this. Brush himself off and somehow – somehow – get on with his life. _As if  I have anywhere to go_ , he thought with some bitterness.

 

He sighed, felt his lips quirk to one side, unhappily. "Look, Cap, to be completely honest, I'm probably not cut out for this." For the first time in forever, he actually felt 40.

 

Rogers was having none of it. "For what?"

 

"Being a soldier. A pilot."

 

"You were at the Academy. For a while."

 

"So, you know about that." Tony snorted. "I wondered. Yeah, for two months. I expect you know how gloriously it ended."

 

"Stories are still being told," Rogers said very dryly. He paused then. "Let me ask you something. Do you want this? To be a pilot?"

 

 _Yes_ , Tony thought. The intensity of the feeling surprised him, even scared him a little bit. "Not the point here," he said instead.

 

"All right, true, but do you want it?"

 

Tony  wanted to hesitate, but the word was out before he could stop it. "Yeah."

 

"So work for it."

 

As if it was that easy, eh? He felt himself suddenly get irritated. He didn't need hand holding and pep talks. He forced a smile. "I'll do that, won't I." Believe me, he thought, annoyed. "Captain." His voice sounded rehearsed, and fake, and that was all well, but he still felt his throat constrict at the next words. "I was going to apologize," he said curtly.

 

The man across the table studied him. Tony found himself wondering how old he was. In his thirties, judging by the appearance, maybe even late twenties. At least 5 or 6 years Tony's junior, probably more. Look at him, believing all this crap. _Work for it and you will get your rightful reward_. Believing he was fit for command, believing _anyone_ was fit to decide someone else's fate in a spur of a moment, to take that responsibility upon himself and neatly transfer a part of it to his superiors. Neatly, like a line in a manual. As if life worked like that.

 

Hierarchy was a big  illusion, true, and it functioned only because people chose to believe in it. Both the ones at the top and the ones at the bottom. Still, none of it was Rogers's fault. Tony had chosen to play the military game, and as in any game, he needed to stick to the rules or the game fell apart.

 

Captain pushed back his chair, got up; settled his hip against the side of the desk in an unexpectedly homely manner. In Tony's eyes he both was and wasn't the same person as last night: both chiseled from a stone block and pretty in a sweet, rosy-cheeked manner that should be punishable by law. His arms crossed, he looked at Tony, down and askance. Tony let his eyes wander upwards without moving his head. _Stop it,_ he told himself.

 

"I'm.. not that much of a stickler for rules and formalities, actually" Rogers said, more mildly. Tony's first impulse was to snort, or it would have been, talking to anyone else. Bu there was something so genuine about Rogers at that moment, and he looked so young all of a sudden, that Tony swallowed. He wasn't sure why it mattered, but it did. He kept silent. "And it's not as if I can't take a joke," Cap went on, "as long as it's all in good fun."

 

"It _wasn't_ all in good fun. What I said. Also, I don't feel so great about it," Tony interrupted. "I was being an asshole for no particular reason. I do that sometimes." He looked at Cap again, up and to the side, still not moving his head. "So, what's the usual procedure for that?"

 

"I believe you learn to hold the assholery in," Cap said, deadpan. "Somewhere around the age of 6 or 7."

 

Uninvited, Tony's lips twisted up, too far. He wanted to turn it into a smirk, but it was too late.

 

"But, we're pilots," Cap went on. "Like it or not, Stark, people look up to us. And the situation being as it is – it's actually important, right now. We need to present a united front. No shows of disrespect. No insubordination." Rogers paused. "I know you already know all this."

 

"No, I know it," Tony said.

 

"I'm not a fan of too much of _sir yes sir_ or _cadet John Smith reporting_ and all that. A modicum of respect will be enough. And I do know these lines tend to get blurred this far out in the Black. And I know you and your fellas are no soldiers – yet. But, from you, at least, I'd expect to know better. So don't step over that line. The demerit on your first day – that's quite an accomplishment, by the way. It stays for now. It means..." Cap paused.

 

"I should watch it," Tony sighed.

 

"Yeah."

 

Sitting on the edge of the desk, Captain made the piece of furniture appear even smaller than it was. It seemed his legs stretched for miles and miles. He was close, and so very human, right then. It would be so easy to just reach out and touch him.

 

"I'm not so great with authority, you know," Tony felt the urge to explain instead.

 

"That," replied Rogers dryly, "has been noted."

 

"You mentioned disciplinary action."

 

Captain raised both eyebrows at him, and Tony couldn't decide if he looked amused or not. "There's the 20 hours introductory course on astrodynamics and aerodynamics, 10 hours on in-orbit weather, 15 hours on engines and systems, all in the curriculum guide I have here." Those eyebrows never went down as Cap spoke. "It's all yours. You can teach it. I'll give you the specs. You'll have to review the material in your free time."

 

"You're kidding." The words burst out before Tony could think them through. "That's not a punishment. That's a... a... reward."

 

A sudden smile split Roger's face; he quickly looked down and hid it behind his hand, but it was unmistakably there. Tony was mesmerized. He found he couldn't look away. His lips stretched wryly in response to his own reaction. Well, he could count this as a win, he supposed.

 

Rogers shook his head at him. "And in addition, you'll do a presentation on military etiquette."

 

Tony snorted. "Okay, that's worse."

 

"Oh, I can do even worse than that," Cap went on, still amused, still smiley, and Tony found he liked the visage, and that was worrisome. "Go for a run in the mornings," Rogers continued. "Proper discipline and all that. Also – fresh air. Always good for you."

 

Now in actual good fun, Tony looked up through his lashes at him. "For a run? With you?" His tone was playful. Which – yes, a mistake, most probably.

 

All of a sudden, Cap froze. Immobile as a pillar. Judging by his face, this was exactly where the blurring stopped and the lines became hard again. Oh well, if Tony didn't push at the boundaries, he wouldn't know where they were located. Rogers's lips had gone thin, and Tony could have sworn he'd blushed a bit, although he might still have been flushed from the run.

 

"That... probably wouldn't be appropriate," Cap said, somewhat stiffly now, although he didn't sound pissed. "Nine or ten rounds around the landing bay should do the trick for you, though."

 

The landing bay wasn't small, and Tony wasn't in an overly great form any more, honestly. Well. Ten rounds every day should certainly help with that if he didn't collapse first. But he suspected that wasn't the point; he suspected the point was the tiny humiliation – being seen running around, by the techs in front of whom he'd been insolent to Rogers. Well, he probably deserved it, and what's more, he could rock it like he rocked everything else. He never really minded exercise either.

 

He debated for a moment if a half-jokey _sir, yes, sir_ would be acceptable right now, but decided against it. This was, when all was said and done, his chance at a second chance so to say. He decided to stick with a semi-conciliatory "I'll do that."

 

Cap nodded. "Dismissed, then. I have work to do."

 

Tony rose to go. Heard a soft intake of breath.

 

"Stark?"

 

Tony waited.

 

"Why'd you apply? For a pilot?" Captain's question sounded almost gentle, genuinely curious. The tone woke something soft in Tony, in response. Unwanted impulses fluttered behind his eyes, blurring his sight, his mind. For a second, he was lightheaded, as if he lacked oxygen. Rogers' eyes were stunning, his face open, unguarded right then, and Tony couldn't look away. _You can't_ , Tony thought at himself furiously. _You can't fall for him. Not now. Not him._

 

He had to keep his head. He forced himself to think. _The question. Focus on the question._

 

In  the matter of half a second, he ran through a score of possible answers. Half of them he thought Captain Rogers would approve of; something in him barred him from voicing any one of those, because if he did, he felt, he'd be stepping into something he didn't know how to handle. He had to take a step back, regroup, get his shields back up. All he wanted to say sounded kind of corny, anyway. "I have to fly," he managed in the end. "Or else I'll go crazy in here." Well, it was _a_ truth.

 

Cap had expected a nobler motive, perhaps. He frowned, and then nodded. _Well, up yours_ , Tony thought without much gusto, mostly pissed at himself. If nothing else, he'd forced the stupid impulses down and he could think clearly. He didn't do anything stupid either, for once.

 

Still, for a long time afterwards he kept coming back to that smile and that sudden blush that overtook Cap's face, and try as he might, he couldn't stop thinking about him.


	4. Player of Games

"Come with me. C'mon, c'mon. We're going for a run."

 

"Is this why you woke me up?" Bruce turned over in bed and squinted at Tony. "It's still dim-lights. What _time_ is it?"

 

"You know the air's freshest this early in the morning." He grinned at his private joke that wasn't really his any longer.

 

Bruce snorted in amusement, though, which was good, because it meant his resistance was being eroded. "We're in a _tin bucket,_ " he said, but his protest was weak and could easily be steamrolled over. "Moving through _vacuum._ By now all we're breathing is recycled farts and 3-methyl-2-hexenoic acid, which is basically body odor."

 

"Oh, but they are still fresher in the morning. Come _on_ , big guy," Tony coaxed him. "You need to pass the physical as well." Tony pretended to give  him a critical once-over, even though the blanket was in the way. "You're kind of flabby."

 

Bruce sat up in bed. He looked up and down the rows of sleeping pilots and shrugged. "I have my connections in medical," he said dryly. "I'll bribe someone into letting me pass."

 

Tony missed Rhodey. Missed the familiarity and easy companionship of many years. Bruce could be almost equally sarcastic, though – just as obstinate and infuriating, as well, when you got past the mild surface; that was one of the reasons Tony liked him.

 

"Go back to bed, you two!" someone muttered, and yeah, maybe they weren't being as super quiet as Tony thought.

 

"You could make this a study in hormonal effects on human behavior," he whispered, tugging at Bruce's blanket, hard enough to make a point, but not hard enough to actually pull it off the bed. "That's what you used to be interested in, back home, isn't it? Endorphins from running, adrenal fatigue from moving through vacuum in a tin bucket: How do they mesh?"

 

"By human behavior I take it you mean yours?" Bruce stretched halfheartedly, rubbing his eyes. "And did you – what, hack into my _files_?"

 

"I vaguely remember reading some articles of yours, back while civilization was still a thing," Tony said lightly, pretending not to see his surprised look. Then he poked him. "See?" he said. "Behavior. Plenty more behavior, where that came from."

 

Bruce muttered something unintelligible, in the vein of, "Do that again and I'll _mutter mutter_ you _,_ " but by that point he was already out of bed and pulling on his fatigues.

 

That was the first day.

 

The second day was pretty much like that, too, only the exchange was somewhat shorter. It could mostly be summarized as _You're not letting me go down there alone, are you?_ and _This is emotional blackmail, Tony_ and _Yep, yep, it is that._

On second thought, probably everything Tony did that first day was a bad idea. Likely, if he hadn't waved at the techs working the night shift and blown kisses in their direction, the prank war wouldn't have started at all. Well. He was, as ever, absolutely unable to ignore Hammer's comments, while outwardly pretending as if he blithely didn't pay any attention to them. Still, he should have stopped at that. He _would_ have – okay, he _might_ have – had Dale not joined in, with the _trying to get yourself all pretty and slim for Cap_ comment. Dale's frog-like face was pretty much cruising for a bruising, but Tony was pumped full of endorphins, so instead, he happily started yelling general maintenance advice across half the deck. It must have been pretty irritating – and loud – since even Darryl came out to see what was going on.

 

Tomorrow, the tiny war was on. It was all still very tame, really. Just the techs – at least two shifts' worth of them – who'd suddenly crowded the edges of the landing bay, functionally blocking Bruce and Tony's path, making them go around them every two or three yards. The guys always apologized politely, but those smirks were infuriating. The running wasn't exactly effective, that day.

 

On the third day, Tony found inspiration in Bruce's words from the first morning. He recruited Scott, Luke and Quentin Quint to come with. The idea was to go to the gym for an hour, get really sweaty and gross, then go for a run around the tech deck as a group; _naked_ , for the maximum disgust effect. Clint caught them during the preparations and interrogated them thoroughly; then he decided to join in. No one, he said, was as repugnant as he was, and he didn't appreciate being left out. Techs had tried to repeat the stunt that had worked so beautifully the previous day. As predicted, they found the smelly naked pilots obnoxious enough, so they mostly stepped out of the way.

 

When Natasha found out about the whole thing, she rolled her eyes and told them they were all children, especially Clint, who should know better. Sam laughed. Valkyrie was pissed that she hadn't been invited to join in. Also, after a minute's thought, she concluded the techs certainly had much easier time coming up with pranks: they only had to strew the deck with nails or put crates in the way or something like that. If the pilots were going to win this – and she said she'd personally strangle anyone who thought of giving up, now that it was on – they had to take _initiative_.

 

Later that day, Natasha came back from wherever she'd been and coolly informed them that, for the next day's prank, the techs planned to spill grease along Tony and the gang's usual path.

 

"Predictable," Valkyrie scoffed.

 

"Simple but effective," Clint mused.

 

"A study in human behavior, you say," Bruce commented.

 

Tony smirked. "I know where they keep silicon grease."

 

Stakes were being upped. The war was heating up.

 

Still, this wasn't the only area where elevated heat signatures were detectable, aboard _Eirene._

***

 

When Steve walked into the empty classroom, it, of course wasn't empty. _I knew it wouldn't be,_ he had admit to himself. Despite his claims of tardiness, Stark always showed up early for the classes he taught. Steve had spotted him before. He never brought any notes with him, and Steve wondered if he were preparing for the lecture in some way or what. Maybe it was curiosity. Or maybe he just wanted to see Tony alone for a second. Which was... unacceptable.

 

In the classroom, Stark, it seemed, wasn't doing anything. The board was meticulously wiped already. Tony just stood next to it, apparently deep in thought. So deep, as a matter of fact, that it appeared contrived. Almost as if he were waiting.

 

 _I'm construing what isn't there_ , Steve told himself. For a moment he lingered at the door, unable to look away.

 

Stark didn't flinch or pretend to notice Steve suddenly. He just deigned to look in his direction a few seconds later. For a moment, under the lashes, his eyes glinted at Steve. One eyebrow cocked up, although Stark still never moved his head to look at Steve properly.

 

The air vibrated with unspoken words. Or maybe it was all in Steve's head. _It must be._

 

Suddenly, Steve was overtaken by a weird idea that Stark kept coming here just so that, once, if Steve walked in, he'd be there, looking at him like _that._

 

It felt like a trap.

 

Steve caught himself desperately wishing he could allow himself to walk straight into it.

 

Ever so slowly, Tony turned towards him, finally. The expression on his face was that of polite inquiry. It looked contrived. It looked like a thin veil over something much more interesting – and, Steve thought firmly, forbidden.

 

Tony was his subordinate and this just... couldn't happen. It was all in subtle hints, all a suggestion, an undercurrent, barely there at all – but it still couldn't happen. Steve kept skirting the lines when he should keep firmly away.

 

 _Firm. Polite. Kind._ _Distant._ He repeated it like a mantra, but it didn't keep him from being glued to the spot, there at the door, for a few long seconds more.

 

Their eyes met properly. Tony smirked.

 

Steve's face felt stiff and frozen, like a piece of solid ice. "Excuse me," he said curtly and fled back into the corridor. Was Stark doing this on purpose?

 

_Doing what?_

 

Technically, he'd done absolutely nothing. No, not just technically. He was guilty of being... too interesting while standing there. That was all. Steve kept reading into things. It was all him. Was it? Wasn't it?

 

Honestly, he had no idea. But what he knew was, he kept acting like an idiot where Stark was concerned. He couldn't find a balance. It was either too much congeniality on his part or chilly stiffness. Stark just made him feel out of sorts.

 

 _I'm too curt with him,_ he told himself, as the ice-cold _excuse me_ kept ringing in his ears during Stark's lecture e made himself sit through. And he couldn't but notice how Stark's voice kept breaking with strain towards the end.

 

He took out a small bottle of water. Without interrupting him, he placed it on the lectern, and, not looking at him, went back and sat down. When he finally met Stark's eyes, the man was looking at him with a slight frown on his face, as if puzzling over something. He snapped out of it at once, but Steve saw.

 

It occurred to him – later, too late – that the thing with the water was also inappropriate. Honestly, he didn't know what he was doing any more. He was going crazy.

 

***

 

 _Not complete dislike_ , Tony thought again and again, wondering why it mattered to him at all, _not really._ He couldn't stop thinking about his last conversation with Captain Rogers – their only actual conversation, really. Rogers had seemed very human, and almost sweet at one point. They _had_ started off on the wrong foot, true, but maybe things would get better now, Tony thought.

 

Instead, Rogers seemed to draw back and became even more reserved. Perhaps they understood each other a bit better now, but still, Captain didn't like him much. He made it clear with his polite but clipped replies, his remote attitude; somehow, Tony thought  he wasn't being as terse with the other cadets.

 

And yet, he was making an effort, Tony had to admit that. Cap was trying to be nicer to him; Tony should probably try back, he thought guiltily. _Good job today, Stark_ , Rogers would say very seriously when he was happy with Tony's progress. Things like that. He even made something resembling a joke from time to time, but overall it seemed to Tony he was generally happier to get these conversations over with as soon as possible. There was something about Tony that made the man agitated, and for better or worse, Tony was absolutely unable to let it go.

 

Poke. Prod. Observe. Repeat.

 

Every day, Tony gave lectures. His teaching time was squeezed in between physical exercises (pretty tasking), combat tactic classes with Rogers (pretty interesting), and flight instruction, held one-on-one in the only flight simulator aboard the ship. The cadets' days were filled from dawn till dusk, but Tony always ended up teaching for at least four or five hours a day. There was a lot of ground to cover, too quickly, so he pretty much took a funnel and poured knowledge into heads, hoping some of it would stick to the sides.

 

During Tony's lectures, Rogers, more often than not, sat in the back. He would usually scribble something, his head bent low. Seemingly not listening.

 

Tony had a distinct impression he wasn't missing a word Tony said.

 

On the second day, Tony caught him looking. It shouldn't have been weird – Tony was in front of the class, _everyone_ was looking. Still, when his gaze strayed towards Rogers, Cap started. He looked away too quickly. Blinked a few times. Hurriedly started pretending he was doing something else.

 

It was so awkward. Almost as if... but no, that was impossible, Tony thought. Still, his curiosity piqued, Tony found himself unable to peel his gaze away. It didn't have anything to do with how those fair eyelashes rested against those cheeks, although Tony could sure as hell appreciate the esthetics. No, after that one conversation, Tony had gotten that notion out of his head, firmly. He was just curious. He kept glancing at the Captain every ten seconds or so. And Cap – he very pointedly never even looked up. His cheeks seemed faintly flushed.

 

And that was... also interesting.

 

 _That's because I'm bored_ , Tony kept telling himself afterwards. Obviously, this was an absurd notion, since, during those days, they practically didn't have enough time to breathe and eat and sleep. _Okay, then, I'm sensually bored. It has nothing to do with time or the lack thereof._

 

On the next day, during his class, he started setting traps for Cap. It was fun. Tony kept going through his teaching plan normally. He would look at every recruit in turn as he explained the reactions that, basically, made the ammo go boom even in near-perfect vacuum. And during all of this, he _never ever_ even glanced in Cap's direction. He wanted to lull the prey into complacency. Then he would pounce.

 

He waited. And then, when from the corner of his eye he thought he saw Rogers looking, Tony turned, quick as lightning, and met the man's eyes head on. Like a clamp snapping shut. For a moment they stayed like that – it was seconds; it was days. Then Cap tore his gaze away, almost forcibly.

 

Immediately, Tony started setting a new trap.

 

Captain caught onto him soon enough. He learned not to react, he learned to just look on – politely, inquisitively – intently listening to the explanations he already knew like the back of his hand. _Bullshit_ , Tony thought, and tried again. This time he didn't refrain from looking at Rogers. He talked, animatedly, even cracked a few jokes. He would gaze at everyone in the audience _including Rogers_ , in turn. As if it was nothing. As if there was nothing going on. But after he passed over him with his eyes – Rogers had a small, polite smile frozen on his lips – Tony let his gaze flare back to him. _Snap._ Like a rubber band. 

 

Rogers looked away. Hurriedly. _Again._

Sure enough, a fraction of a second later he did look back and he rose his eyebrows at Tony, as if in serene enquiry. It could have been absolutely nothing, of course it could have; Tony could have been imagining the whole exchange. But some kind of weird, dangerous curiosity inside him was piqued.

 

Tony was, he told himself, just trying to make sure he was not imagining the whole thing, so he decided to continue with the experiments. _Just for today_ , he told himself. This didn't amount to enough. The evidence was inconclusive, the symptoms, as Bruce would probably put it, still subclinical. He couldn't be sure.

 

This was how The Game happened.

 

Tony could be very good at The Game. Granted, he  was usually too impatient and rash to bother with it; but now, somehow, it practically played itself. He wasn't sure how he even got into it. He wasn't sure what he was hoping to achieve. But every encounter, every exchange between him and the Captain became his playground. The way they apparently didn't know how to talk to each other, things had to stay nonverbal most of the time, but perhaps that made The Game even more interesting. Tony would look up into Cap's eyes through his eyelashes, then down, instantly down. He'd bite his lower lip thoughtfully; hold it between his teeth for a moment, then release it. He'd let a tiniest of smiles play upon his lips – sometimes a dry smirk, and sometimes something playful and way more personal.

 

Through all this, Tony kept these interactions at the sensory threshold. It was crucial to maintain a high level of deniability. And it was _interesting_ , because before, when he wanted to seduce someone, he'd pretty much flirt shamelessly and brazenly until it worked or blew up in his face. This required far more strategy. If you put all the infinitesimal clues together, you'd get one big fat zero, give and take a few decimals. He wasn't _doing_ anything. And for all that, Rogers was _reacting._ He'd look into Tony's eyes, and quickly away; he'd blush faintly, then try to cover it up. He'd let himself be entrapped for a second, as if getting caught in a fantasy web, then step back resolutely, all straight face and stern voice. And Tony couldn't be sure anything was actually going on there either – but on a good day, he thought Rogers was _responding_ to him _._ It didn't have to be a _good_ response, necessarily. As long it was _there._

 

Individual flying classes were by far the easiest battleground. The flight generator was old, and the controls were stiffer than what Tony was used to in the top of the line planetside flyers he liked back home. The space was bigger than a cockpit too, so that the instructor had enough room to move around a bit, to correct this move or that turn. And, apart from the bluish, flickering lights of the faux control panel, it was dark inside.

 

For Tony, every personal tutoring session with Cap brought on a heady feeling. The excitement would start building up in his stomach hours in advance. It was barely detectable at first, like a tiny blue flame flickering to life somewhere deep inside him. Still, it was undeniable. _Just because it's fun to play him_ , Tony told himself. And, sometimes: _Only because I like flying_ , and that wasn't even a complete lie. He _lived_ for the day he would enter a real cockpit of a real craft, be launched off the deck and shoot out into the Black like an arrow. He _dreamed_ about it at night. But, intertwined with that, there was also a giddy feeling regarding Cap himself. Over and over, he caught himself picturing how he could tease Rogers that day, imagining all the perfectly explicable touches, there and not there, a barely perceptible brush of a hand against hand. They always sent a sharp thrill through him – only because he fancied that, in response, he detected a tiny tremor in Cap's hand too, felt a sudden heat radiating from the man's body. As if his own imaginings of how Cap must be feeling gave him a strange kick, an electric charge straight through his gut.

 

They still didn't talk more than necessary, but in the darkness of the simulator, the touches grew bolder. All of a sudden, Tony sported more bad flying habits than ever. Abruptly, there was a need for Cap to lean over him, place his hand over Tony's on the control stick, show him how to steer. Tony wasn't sure any longer which one of them instigated this. But in two seconds flat it would all go away, flicker off as if it never happened, and he thought he must be going crazy. Reading into things.

 

On his better days, Tony thought it was actually _working_. He wasn't sure where he wanted this to go, but a bit of impulsiveness and adventure never hurt anyone, right? _Right?_

 

 _You're falling for him_ , an inner voice warned him occasionally, but Tony did his best to shut it up. It was a bit of sexual tension, nothing more. That, and a bit of fun. _So, why does it bother you that you two aren't talking?_ And they weren't, they couldn't, didn't know how to – not to each other, at any rate. When Tony tried to joke around, Steve would draw back or take it the wrong way. When Steve forced himself to try chatting, it sounded stiff and unnatural, and grated on Tony's nerves. Steve wasn't socially awkward otherwise. He had friends among the pilots. He was sometimes downright cordial with  other cadets. It was obviously just Tony he had a problem with.

 

It's better that way, Tony figured. He loved to talk. Talking was what mattered. As long as they _didn't_ talk, Tony could keep this under control. If they started talking, he'd fall fast, and that just wouldn't do.

 

But Tony had darker days too. Days when he thought it was all bullshit, and as time went by and nothing happened, dark days came more and more often. Tony kept thinking about Steve more and more – how patient he was, and solid, and competent (competence was _hot_ ). And the eyes, and the smile, and... And Steve kept looking away. He kept drawing his hand away, more and more attuned to Tony's games. As if Tony's hand brushing against his was electrically charged. Only, it didn't necessarily mean something _good_ , did it? What if Rogers just – saw everything? Saw Tony put an effort into this, saw what he was doing – and didn't want it? What if it just made him awkward and uneasy, not in a good, hot, titillating way but in the _actual_ awkward and uneasy way of having unwanted attentions peppered upon him and not knowing how to deal with them gracefully? The other things, the way the time in the simulator felt almost intimate – it could all be in Tony's head.

 

One night, Tony lay awake, thinking about this. Things were coming clear in his mind, and they made his gut go cold. Embarrassment? No, it was worse than that.

 

 _Playboy?_ he thought bitterly. _I'm not a playboy. I'm just easy. Always have been, always will be. That's all._

He jumped out of bed, to the background noise of angry, sleepy mutters of his dorm mates. There was nowhere to pace, here. If he hadn't been at war with the tech, he might have gone down to the landing bay to fiddle around with something. It always helped settle his nerves.

 

He felt caged, more than ever. _Coffee,_ he thought, because coffee always made everything a bit better, and because, on the ship, the supplies of coffee were limited. At one point, it would run out, and it was a good idea to pour as much as possible into him now, while he still could.

 

"Please," he begged the mess hall attendant that worked nights. She knew him, and he knew her. This wasn't the first time he was here, and in the meantime, this has become their private little dance.

 

 _You've had your rations, ensign_ , she would say, although he wasn't one yet. Still, Tony'd heard her call Clint _admiral_ on several occasions, so he guessed it was just her own thing.

 

 _What are you doing there?_ , he'd ask then, as per usual, and: _Writing a novel_ , she'd say.

 

 _Really? What about? Can I be in it?_ , he'd asked the first time this night time conversation took place, and every time after that he enquired: _Have you put me in it yet?_

 

But now he was unusually out of sorts. It was just that kind of night. He went through the conversation on autopilot, not even cursorily trying to be charming.

 

She cocked her head and poured him his coffee without further ado. It usually took him longer to extract some. She seemed mildly disappointed that he was disinclined to play.

 

He sipped the familiar hot beverage. It was vile, and it burned his tongue, and it helped him focus.

 

He didn't actually _want_ Rogers, he told himself very firmly. (Not that he'd mind if something happened, odiously; Rogers was pretty hot.) What he wanted was to make him _react_ , make him _dance_ , make him _feel_. That was what made the game interesting. It was just like these night time conversation, the game. If two weren't playing it together, if they weren't doing the dance, then it wasn't fun any more. He wanted a response, a feedback, not to badger at someone who felt mildly nauseated by his efforts.

 

"Do I get a love story?" Tony asked suddenly. And then, when she frowned at him, almost as if she had no idea what he was talking about: "In your novel? A romantic subplot or something?"

 

"It's not a romance type of book," she said.

 

"Well, I'm not a romance type of hero. Still, doesn't mean I don't deserve a subplot."

 

She cocked her head in thought. "Nah, you're more like the bad boy the heroine fools around with before she picks the good guy for good. Or it'd be like that if I _were_ writing a romance novel."

 

"Which you are not."

 

"Which I am not."

 _See,_ he thought, _I have more to talk about with a mess attendant than a guy I'm purportedly interested in, in whatever manner._ And: _You care. In whatever minor way, but you do, and nothing good ever came of that._ _Look, even the lunch lady agrees. Romantic subplots are  not for me._

That was when he firmly decided to stop with The Game nonsense. He was surprised at the feeling of vague loss, and it was oddly depressing. He hated rejection. And this wasn't even that. This felt like a tiny sun dying before it even got a chance to shine. _Dramatic much?_ he asked himself that afternoon, during his lecture. He had to do it. He had to leave Rogers alone and move on.

 

Tony's basic flight class that evening was when it all went to shit.

 

***

 

The entrance to the flight simulator was through the classroom, and due to the tight schedule, there was always _someone_ in the classroom. Usually it was several someones – a few new cadets, sometimes an older pilot helping them out with an assignment. There wasn't much time for either teaching or learning, so any help was appreciated and all kinds of group projects allowed. More often than not, Cap was there in the classroom, even when his teaching hours were over.

 

Tony knew one of the Jessicas had a simulator class with Cap earlier in the day, and then it was Bruce and then Scott. Tony wondered when the man found the time. It was almost as if his day stretched longer than the normal 26 hours, and what's more, he almost never looked tired.

 

He did now, Tony noticed as he entered. There weren't any readily detectable signs of weariness, like you'd notice on someone else – black circles round the eyes or a general sag about the shoulders. No – Cap was always straight as an arrow and fresh as a rose; unbearably so. It could drive you crazy. Still – if you looked closely enough, there was now something in his eyes, around his eyes, that spoke of weariness, and Tony saw it there, and didn't like it one bit; then he reminded himself of his resolutions from the previous night, and also that he probably shouldn't be standing in the doorway, staring at his Captain like an idiot.

 

Cap was standing over Quentin Quint, his head inclined, a patient half-smile on his lips. He seemed a tad distracted.

 

"So, that's flat scissors, then?" Quint asked, gesturing at his diagram.

 

"Yes."

 

The flight diagrams were simple enough, but he supposed that the acquired knowledge was not so easily transferred from theory to actual flying without a lot of experience. He thought to himself that this would all go way easier if Steve – Rogers, he corrected himself, because it really wouldn't do to get intimate – if Rogers let them enter the cockpit, go out and _try things out_ , see how it actually felt to do the flat scissors maneuver in a proper flyer. The simulator was well and good, but it wasn't the real thing.

 

Tony had never steered a craft outside of a planet's atmosphere. He was _itching_ to try. Still, not everyone was a hands-on type like he was, and not everyone had his experience. He could _understand_ why the delay, but it was making him jittery.

 

"So, if this is flat scissors, what are horizontal scissors?" Quint asked.

 

 _It's the scissors that tell you you need to pay attention in class_ , Tony snapped silently, but Cap just smiled. "Exactly the same thing."

 

"What, same thing, different name?" That was Daisy Johnson, who was also there. A very quick student, but prone to playing it down. "That's confusing." Tony was pretty sure it wasn't confusing to her at all. "Can't we just ditch both and call the thing something simple like... Dave?" Daisy grinned up at Rogers, who allowed himself to snort.

 

"Just wait till you learn what a Dave maneuver actually is."

 

Tony told himself what he felt was impatience. Definitely not jealousy. That would be ridiculous. Daisy was a very pretty woman, though. And it seemed everyone _but_ Tony could make Steve laugh.

 

"Okay, wait." Quint was getting grouchy, but it was Quint, so that was nothing out of the ordinary. "There's another kind of scissors, too, isn't there?"

 

Cap's voice was warm in Tony's ears as he explained. For a moment, Tony was content to listen to the melody, the modulation of it. As soon as he realized this, he pulled up short. This had to stop.

 

"Hey," he said, half expecting Cap to jump, but then, all of a sudden, it seemed to him the guy had known all along that Tony was there. And didn't even acknowledge him. Well, that should be a clue enough for anyone. Tony adopted an even more cheerful, unconcerned tone of voice, because, of course, Steve's indifference meant nothing to him. "I'll be in the simulator, okay? You guys take your time." Without an obvious reason, his heart palpitated in his ears. It was difficult to tear his gaze away from Steve's profile, as he bent down over Quint's notebook. Walking so close past him, in order to get to the simulator, suddenly seemed like an impossible task. Tony kept his breathing calm, kept his mask of nonchalance on. It was a relief he didn't wear his heart on his sleeve, but it did nothing to make this any easier on the _inside._ It seemed that, since he decided not to do this any more, things just got harder instead the other way around.

 

"Yeah, get into the simulator. Turn it on, get warmed up," Steve told him, still not looking up. "I'll be there in a minute."

 

"No worries," Tony chirped and vanished through the door. _Ugh, 'it' is turned on all right, that much's for sure, and I'm apparently all warmed up anyway, so there's that._ He sank into the piloting chair an let out a long sigh. This was really getting absurd. He needed to calm down. That night he'd reached certain conclusions. This was just a practical confirmation. Rogers was ignoring him – teaching him, sure, but still ignoring him as much as possible.

 

Tony thought he had made his peace with that, during the night. He didn't know why it suddenly seemed unbearable, but decided – once again – to act as normally as possible. _From this time forth, my thoughts be nonchalant or be nothing worth_ , he misquoted to himself.

 

He turned the simulator on. Tried to picture what it would feel like to be launched into space and _actually_ have the control of your life, quite literally, in your hands. _Concentrate  on that._ Yeah, fine. He was just getting too invested in The Game. The important thing was to focus on the work.

 

 _Forget all about it,_ he told himself and kicked the simulator into gear.

 

The door opened, the light flooded the chamber for a few seconds, and then it was all gloom again and the bluish flickering of the control panel in front of him. He didn't turn around.

 

"Sorry about that," he heard Cap say.

 

Tony felt a corner of his lips twitch into something wry and not particularly happy. Decided – yet again – to try and let it go. He won't bait him today.

 

"See, you do know how to teach," he commented off-handedly, because that just meant he didn't care one bit, didn't it. "Don't know why you even have me doing it when you're good at it."

"To keep you occupied, of course." Tony could hear the smile in Cap's voice, _felt_ his approach. "So that you don't get in trouble." His own breathing sped up. Forcibly, he held it under control.

 

It was a joke, and Tony knew it. Why did Cap have to do it today, of all days, that Tony had decided not to pursue this and leave him alone? Why couldn't he just be his usual, serious self? Did Tony's casual comments have exactly the opposite effect than intended?

 

"What are we working on, today?" he asked, trying to sound businesslike this time around. His own voice sounded weird and stiff in his ears. His face felt like wood.

 

A faint brush of hand against his shoulder, there and then not. As if Steve – _Rogers!_ he told himself firmly – was going to put a hand on his shoulder, then aborted the notion. _Oh, of course he wouldn't touch you_. Tony'd seen him do it to other cadets on numerous occasions – hands on shoulders, even comforting pats on hands if someone couldn't complete an assignment or got panicky about the whole world-as-we-know-it-is-probably-dead-and-I'm-supposed-to-fight-the-scary-machines-that-did-it-??? issue. (Everyone got a bout of that from time to time, it was normal.)

 

"Everything all right?" Cap's voice sounded as stiff as Tony's now.

 

"Oh, yeah," Tony said quickly. "Everything's great. Fab. Stellar – pardon the pun." He was babbling, he knew he was, just like he knew he was gripping the control stick too tightly. Suddenly, he was painfully aware the lights from the control panel illuminated his face pretty well, casting a pale blue glow over his twisted lips and arched eyebrows and the overall spasm that his features had turned into. He couldn't be sure if Rogers could see him from his angle, but Tony's first impulse was to turn around, turn away from the lights. As he did so, the sight of Steve – right there, so close – hit him like a hammer. The breadth of his shoulders startled him. For a second all he was able to see were those shoulders, stretching away, and he wondered how come he'd never really noticed how broad they were – he'd _seen_ them, but somehow not like this. The fact cut his gut in half, and that was the moment he knew he was in deep shit.

 

He'd let it all go too far. That was the problem with The Game, a part of him mused idly, while the rest of his brain focused on breathing. When you try to play it, sometimes you fall into the trap yourself. You start paying attention to someone's reactions, aware of each tiny cue, each hitched breath or almost-touch, of every brush of hand against hand or word against word, and in the end it turns out you've only managed to play yourself.

 

He had an actual, honest to gods crush on Steve Rogers, big as a space station, and he should have admitted it to himself way earlier.

 

And while 'crush' had always seemed like such a small, stupid word, suddenly it had a new meaning, because it was a thing that _crushed_ you. Like getting a truckload of something dumped right on top of you; well, of course you couldn't breathe like that.

 

"Okay, okay," he muttered to himself.

 

Cap cleared his throat.

 

"Shall we start where we left off yesterday?"

 

"What, the Stanislavski maneuver again?" Tony said. It wasn't a complaint. More like a gasp for air, honestly. He had to pull himself together, he had to focus. Should he ask for a breather? No, that way he'd have to get up, walk right past Steve in this confined space, and... no, just no. Bad idea.

 

"You do keep lagging to the left."

 

"True," Tony said and kicked the gravity simulators into gear. "I did have that recording from yesterday around here somewhere." He was grateful to his fingers – good, clever fingers, able to perform tasks with absolutely zero input from his conscious brain. They flew over the memory panel on the right, with the  list of pre-programmed exercises (Tony'd quickly outgrown those) and the custom-made scenarios, but there was no half-finished simulation in the saved files.

 

"Aw, it was there this morning, I know I saw it..." Cap leaned over and around Tony's right shoulder – so very careful not to touch him that it seemed almost ridiculous – and started scrolling through the files. "No, really, people just keep messing with..."

 

"Hey, that's new," Tony commented when he spotted a list that hadn't been there yesterday. He was proud of himself – his voice sounded pretty normal now, and the comment was offhanded enough, and...

 

"Oh, yes, I recorded some advanced stuff for y... eh, I recorded it last night," Rogers said, with an inexplicable but quickly covered stammer mid-sentence.

 

"Do you ever _sleep_?" It escaped Tony's lips before he could stop it.

 

"Oh you're the one to talk," Cap shot right back, and it shouldn't have felt so good, but it was so close to Tony's ear that it made him shudder. He let himself indulge the impulse just for a second. Cap was so near – hunched over the panel, and Tony – still apparently looking for the  recording from yesterday. "Tera from the mess hall said you keep bothering her, begging for coffee." There was a hint of laughter in his voice.

 

"I just asked for a little advance on today's portion," Tony said, and smiled for a moment. And: "She complained? Really? And here I thought I was being perfectly charming." Gods, he should stop chattering, he should just shut up and try to survive this intact.

 

"I'm sure you were," Cap snorted. Tony knew – he _knew_ – he shouldn't, but he leaned a little bit to the right, almost involuntarily, almost as if drawn by an outward force. His shoulder bumped into Cap's side. The feeling that shot through him was unjustifiably intense. His next thought was: _Shit, I not only have a crush, I'm becoming addicted to it_.

 

Steve jumped back – away – as if hit by a spurt of hot steam. " _Sorry_ ," Tony said, and he didn't mean to sound so indignant, but there was no helping it now.

 

"Nono, I... got a cramp," Cap muttered uncomfortably. He was such a bad liar it was almost endearing.... Tony had to _stop this train of thought._ Together with the train of touching and bumping and what have you. He pinched the bridge of his nose for a second, took a deep breath, shook his head at himself.

 

The silence stretched, but it definitely wasn't the most uncomfortable entity in the room.

 

"So, er..." Tony began at the same moment as Cap said, "Yes, well, nevertheless..." which made them both fall silent again, and Tony had a horrible feeling this might extend ridiculously if he didn't do something.

 

"Start from the beginning," Steve said firmly, just as Tony was opening his mouth to say something useful, and – Rogers, his mane is _Rogers_ , or Cap, or Mighty Superior or something like that. Not Steve, _because if I start calling him Steve in my mind, then I'll start calling him Steve  when I talk to the others, and if I start calling him Steve in front of them, then I'll slip up and call him Steve to his face, and that would be a disaster_. "The beginning," Cap repeated. "You can only benefit from it. We'll record everything all over again, and tonight we're wrapping this exercise up. It never does any good to leave a part of it for tomorrow."

 

"Right," Tony said and made himself focus on the screens and the radars and the panels in front of him. His palm on the control stick felt clammy. "You ready?"

 

The instructor's chair was to the right of Tony's, but Rogers almost never used it like a normal person would. He typically stood to Tony's left instead, holding on to the handle on the wall.

 

Rogers positioned himself, grabbed a good hold of the handle with both hands and nodded. Which was – stupid, Tony thought, because it was dark, and Tony was supposed to be looking at the controls, not at him, _but of course I had to be super attuned to Steve fucking Rogers._

 

 _Focus on flying_. But to do that, he needed to actually challenge himself, otherwise he'd keep thinking about Rogers. "Wanna do full G today?" he asked, his fingertips hovering above the slide. Full gravity slamming you into your seat as you sped, a real simulation of what it would be like to fly. Tony felt anticipation build.

 

"You think you are ready?"

 

"I think I'm ready."

 

"How are the strength exercises going?" Cap enquired, and by now he was back to his normal stiff self, or at least he sounded it. Tony half expected him to call him 'son' one of these days, which was – everything considered – a bit too icky.

 

 _Come and see_ , he wanted to say. He filtered it, though. Brain to mouth filters _on_. Yay!

 

"What, you mean you haven't been monitoring my gym scores? Why the hell am I recording them, then?" Okay, well, those filters never worked the way they were supposed to anyway. They should be replaced. Or his brain should. That would probably solve all his problems.

 

Unexpectedly – in _explicably_ – he was aware of Cap reaching towards him, and pressing his fingers right over Tony's – pressing Tony's fingers down, _down_ onto the slider. And then sliding it up, _up_ to the full G. Like in slow motion. But it  must have happened lightning fast, because the red hot signal barely had the time to reach Tony's brain and already it was over, and Cap was drawing back.

 

 _And why in the name of hell did he do that if he wasn't playing The Game too?_ Tony thought ruefully. He had no answer, but he was pretty sure the obvious one shouldn't be taken into account. He'd reviewed all the data last night. That conclusion simply didn't hold water.

 

"Let's see how you do," Rogers said, and there was a bit of challenge in his voice, and it made Tony's foot go straight to the accelerator of its own volition and _push_. Suddenly, forcibly, the increased gravity pushed him down into his seat, and he felt his heart rate speed up. A surprised, delighted laugh escaped his lips. This felt like the real thing, like real flying. He'd _missed_ it.

 

He was acutely aware of Rogers, just inches away, holding onto his handle. He heard a tiny gasp as he turned the faux flyer to the right, then ninety degrees upwards, then overhead, performing a near perfect somersault – ending up on the virtual enemy's tale. He released a round of ammo. He knew these moves well, although they had yet to sink into his bones.

 

Still, with the full G on, he felt every turn, every change in direction. He was pressed into the seat, then his chest was pressed into the straps of the chair, puling against them. A jerk, a violent turn to the right, and then back again. He thought his eyes were going to pop out of the sockets, but he was also distantly aware he couldn't stop laughing and whooping.

 

The simulator kept going faster and faster; the same maneuver, then the variations, one side and then the other, up and down, one enemy, two, three, evade, and do the loop and shoot, then another loop, then shoot again, faster and faster until his reflexes could barely keep up. Hot exhilaration coursing through him, he became aware of Cap's voice, nearer than it was supposed to be. "Lagging. You're lagging. The left, Stark. _Good_. No. The _left._ Don't think about it, just... _Left,_ Tony."

 

And then Steve was reaching over. Tony had no fucking idea how in the name of hell the man could stay upright in this velocity, these turns. He was leaning against the back of Tony's chair now, and then his hand was right on Tony's shoulder, gripping for real – no hesitant brushes of fingers now. He was leaning over, putting his hand over Tony's on the control stick, steering together with him, guiding him, faster, ever faster. He wasn't saying anything, but Tony could hear his heavy breathing so close, felt the fingers digging into his shoulder, felt a fist gripping his own, warm and dry and big. Herd his soft laughter intertwined with Tony's whoops as they steered together.

 

There wasn't anything Tony could do about it, really. It was as if it happened of its own volition. Suddenly he moved the imaginary craft sharply to the left, and forward, and it wasn't as if he'd planned for this, but maybe he did, just a little bit. Cap, with his perfect balance and his perfect coordination, gasped and fell back and to the right –  colliding with Tony's body.

 

Tony may have lost some air. It was utterly due to the collision.

 

All of a sudden Tony could feel him – Steve's shoulder against his chest, Steve's face abruptly so close to his own, unnaturally close, his breath on Tony's cheek like a heatwave. He turned his head, a minuscule motion that seemed to last centuries. He met Steve's gaze. Expected to find accusation there.  Didn't. He didn't quite know how to read that expression – eyes wide, unblinking, lips half parted. Blood roared in his ears like a thousand heavy engines. Steve's fingers still dug into his shoulder to the point of bruising pain. Were his lips inching towards Tony's? Or was it the other way around?

The simulator was forgotten. Tony moved a nanometer forward. Then another. Were seconds passing at all? Minutes? Or did they enter some kind of a weird time loop? Were they moving toward each other at all? Would the parallel lines ever cross, somewhere far ahead, in the planes of infinity?

 

Another millimeter forward, because there was no choice now. The course was set. His heart in his ears like a hurricane, like a flood. Steve's body still pressed into his where the acceleration left it. His eyes, so fucking blue in the blue light of the control panel...

 

Then something changed – like a barrel of cold water poured right over your head. It was barely perceptible; it was huge as a mountain. Steve seemed to come to his senses. He didn't even move. It was just his eyes suddenly becoming sober – then distant – then sharp as volcanic glass.

 

The shake of his head was just a tiny motion, just once. "Stark," he said. "Just don't."

 

The crash that shook the faux cockpit was well simulated. They were hit by enemy fire. Right in the tail. It seemed to Tony he never welcomed anything so much in his life. 

 

Apologies were out of question. _Anything_ that included the language processing centers in his brain was out of question right now. The best he could do was look away. Let himself stare into the screens for two seconds. Inconsequentially, he noticed he'd let go of the control stick at some point. He reached out and took hold of it, grabbed it as if he was going to tear it right out of the simulator. He felt his cheeks burning. Was it rage or embarrassment or disappointment – he had no idea. All he was aware of was his own searing hot skin. That was it. Just that.

 

"I apologize," he heard Rogers say. He'd never sounded so much as if he had a stick up his ass. "Please finish the exercise. I'll review it later."

 

Tony thought his voice faltered there towards the end of the sentence, but honestly, he didn't give two fucks.

 

Opening and closing of the door. Rogers had fled the room. What was left was emptiness.

 

Tony didn't give a... Well, okay, he was running out of coital comparisons for the moment, but he still didn't care one bit. _He didn't._

 

The heaviness of it in his stomach was almost impossible to bear.

 


	5. Slopes That Get Slippery

That night, Steve really wanted to stop feeling things. Tony Stark was brilliant and that made Steve want to go hurl himself into a white giant. For the first time in his military career, he actually had to review the fraternization rules.

 

He couldn't say he even liked Stark, as such. He definitely wasn't a one for whirlwind romances. He'd had two serious relationships in his life, both over for some time now. He had grown into both relationships steadily, gradually. He'd known both Peggy and Bucky well. No – an understatement, right there – he'd known Bucky all his life and he'd went to school with Peggy, been friends with her for – well – years, before anything happened for real. But – no. No thinking about Bucky and Peggy tonight. He'd do it some other night, when he felt a distinct, self-destructive urge to quietly disintegrate on the inside. For now, he had to keep it together by keeping hope alive– forcibly – and imagining that they were alive and well, somewhere out there, in the great expanse of space. That was it. The other options were unbearable.

 

(This was one of the reasons Steve would have preferred not to feel anything at all. Most of the time, it got from 'feeling' to 'unbearable' in ten easy seconds.)

 

Now, what he had for Stark weren't feelings – not emotions, surely. He didn't even know Tony for real, not what kind of person he was, not what kind of opinions he held. But the man was like a tiny hurricane that came and took over Steve's life. It almost felt as if Steve stood by, on the side, in the bleachers, spreading his arms helplessly and wondering what that idiot in the field – namely, himself – was doing down there. (Steve had liked playing softball, while they still had things like softball fields... and sports... and, well, ground. ) Stark had sneaked up on him, somehow, and made his existence known. Half the time Steve couldn't tell if what he was doing to Steve was on purpose or not. Sometimes it obviously was. At other times – it very evidently wasn't.

 

Steve felt like he was balancing at the edge of a knife. What he wanted was to get closer to him, get to know him. What he felt he needed to do here was keep his distance. He imagined he managed to fall somewhere in between, a middle of the road, but after what happened today, he thought he was more like a pendulum, swinging wildly between the two points. He wanted to just bury his face in his hands and stay like that, but there lay another road to darkness, so he didn't.

 

Tony Stark was... brilliant. And completely unsuitable for the army. And such a talented pilot that Steve had to _make_ him fit into the strict, angular rules and regulations, because, well, _Eirene_ needed him. They needed anyone who could be taught to sit in the cockpit and not crash into the mothership while trying to turn _away_ , and not empty all his guns into a friendly's tail instead of turning _left._ (All of this had actually happened – given, it was in the simulator, so no real damage done, but Steve quietly dreaded the day he'd have to let the new cadets into real flyers.) Still, it never happened with Tony – Tony steered like a dream, he made the craft move as if it was a literal bird, and he its brain. Under his fingers, the controls weren't controls, but neural impulses. And Steve very badly needed to stop waxing poetic about the man, or this ridiculous crush would soon turn into something even worse. Steve had to stomp it out with all the resolution he could muster.

 

Still, Tony was always there, somehow , whenever Steve looked up. Steve had a hard time not staring at him. What he'd found interesting at first was his, well, arrogance. The way he moved as if he owned the battleship and everyone around was an employee. And Steve _disliked_ that, intensely, but it drew his gaze. And then, sometimes, when Tony was at the lectern, explaining, or while listening to Steve's tactics lessons and scribbling in his notebook (actual, paper notebook, which he kept complaining about) – a different Tony emerged. That one wasn't all ready charm and flashy grins. There was a glint in his eye, a thoughtful smile, an endless fascination with his subject; seemingly unending patience when he needed to explain something for the fifth time. He never seemed to grow bored. He never put the other cadets down directly. But then he'd go and spoil it all by saying things like 'dumbing the matter down for the kids' to Steve. Steve couldn't decide if it was genuine, deeply rooted arrogance or just Stark's mouth running faster than his brain.

 

Still, what drew Steve most, perhaps, was a third Tony – the laughing, whooping one that emerged when Tony strapped himself into the simulator, and the lights went off, and the guarded expression fell away from his face within seconds, and genuine, contagious excitement took over. He was truly talented, and a little crazy, and bold as brass. If he acted like that out there in the Black, he'd either get killed off first thing (another idea that absolutely didn't bear thinking about) or grow to be a real pilot pretty quickly.

 

 _You don't know what he'll be like_ , Steve kept telling himself. _It's easy to steer like that in a simulator, where your life isn't really at risk, where it's all a glorified game. You don't know him and you don't know how he'll hold out, so sit tight and don't rush into conclusions. Don't rush into anything._

 

Steve always left the individual instruction with Tony for the evenings. Another thing he kept telling himself was that he needed to help the others first – the others that weren't so good, that required more instruction, more patience, a less tired mind. But, if he admitted  the truth – and after what happened today, he had to – he left Tony for the evenings so that he'd have something to look forward to the whole day. And _that_ line of thinking was dangerous.

 

Today. Today he'd let himself go. He was careless. It was as if he turned his rational self off and a stupid brainless Steve had taken over. A disaster almost happened. No, a disaster _did_ happen, but it was just a minor disaster, and could still be contained if he insulated certain parts of his brain. But this needed to be addressed.

 

Steve had no idea how to address it, though, except to try again what he'd been trying so far. Distance himself. Be rational. Not let the... sensual part of him, so to speak, take control. Because Stark was _attractive_ , and Steve seemed to bump into him all the time, and Stark always had something smartmouthed to say – to Steve or in front of Steve – and then there were those looks that could burn through anything like hot lava (like hot chocolate, Steve thought, inconsequentially). Steve didn't know what to do with the way that made him feel. The more he tried to keep away, the more drawn to the man he was. _Nothing_ seemed to be the right answer.

 

He didn't even _like_ Stark, for twelve gods' sakes. He didn't _know_ him, and what he was finding out seemed to be a really mixed bag. Or an incomprehensible tangle. (A tangle was probably a better comparison.) Still, somehow, Steve wanted to know more.

 

That evening, after he'd rabbitted out of the simulator and tried organizing his thoughts without much success, he found himself looking for Sam in the gym. Older pilots off duty were often there in the evenings, when the nuggets mostly cleared out. He ended up finding Natasha instead, which was probably just as good. He could talk to Sam, and Sam often saw things more clearly than Steve, with a certain no-bullshit attitude he possessed. But Steve didn't know how to open a conversation of this type, and he didn't really _want_ to talk about it in the first place. He needed to process. He was just restless, that was it. So Natasha was just as good, because he could just as well _not_ talk to her about anything important.

 

She was bench-pressing, as per usual. Steve took up the neighboring bench. The gym was pretty tiny – _Eirene_ wasn't a big ship – and, air recyclers notwithstanding, seemed to sport a permanent stench of sweat and, for whatever reason, old bean stew.

 

"Hey, Nat."

 

"Hey, Winghead." (That was his old nickname from their academy days. Steve had been sure it would end up as his callsign, but it never did.)

 

"Have you been to see Carol and the others today?" he asked just to say something. The injured pilots were still in the med bay. If anything significant changed on that front, he'd be updated.

 

Natasha was counting under her breath – a bad habit she couldn't seem to shake – and then she paused and rested for a moment. "I have," she said. "Carol's unchanged. Quill and Gamora took to walking around on crutches – just a little bit, though, and they grow tired quickly."

 

The fact was, _Eirene_ wasn't so well equipped when it came to medical supplies or gear. The doctors had to improvise, and many wounds had to be waited out and infused with a lot of hope on daily basis. "Volstagg wanted to know all the details about the _Tiny... War_ with the tech department. He's inconsolable he can't join in."

 

"The tiny war?" Steve said, his mind shutting down for a moment.

 

Natasha rolled her eyes. "You're not saying it right. It's the _Tiny... War._ How can you not know these things?"

 

"The _Tiny... War_ ," Steve said with a dramatic emphasis and laughed softly. He put the weight down for a second, wiped the sweat off his forehead. "No, I'm aware of it. The guys don't have much else to do. You can't just play pool or triad for days or months on end..." He arched his eyebrows and looked at Nat with humor tinged with weariness. "I thought _you_ thought it was childish."

 

Natasha made a non-committal face. "Child-like is the world you might be looking for. Insofar as children are silly and often cruel and have no grasp of the consequences."

 

Steve chuckled. "Yeah, I'm not a fan of the whole thing either, but it seems mostly harmless so far." Then: "I heard the old pilots are joining in too, though?"

 

"Oh," Natasha said, "Some." She lay back down and started the next series. So did Steve without giving it much thought. Exercise always helped clear his mind, but now it served mostly as an excuse to keep the damned thing empty for a while.

 

"Is that a good idea?"

 

Natasha let the air out of her lungs with a huff. "You're messing with my counting," she said. "And aren't you always the one going on about the pilots presenting a united front? Was I at 15?"

 

"I think you were at 16," Steve said, not that it mattered.

 

"I'm starting over," she declared, just like he knew she would. 

 

"But you don't go running with the nuggets?" he asked. She gave him a covert look, arched an eyebrow, as if she knew he was angling up to something. Steve smiled to himself.

 

"Well, I never bought the bullshit about unity." She tried to smile lazily, but the sweat and strain on her face spoiled the effect somewhat. " _Eleven_ , dammit, Steve, I can't talk and count at the same time, you know that." He rewarded this with a snort, because it was bullshit, and she glared at him. "Besides," she added offhandedly. "If I went running with them, they'd think I was openly supporting our side, so they'd think the info they know we are getting was coming from me, and then they'd think it was via Darryl and Thor, and that would be bad. So."

 

"Say _what_?" said Steve, a bit befuddled.

 

"Oh, you'll never understand politics."  
  
"Natasha, remind me again how old we are."

 

She put the weight on the stand and jumped up.  "That's the dormitory effect for you," she stated. And: "Well, that's it for today, as far as I'm concerned."

 

"The _what_ effect?"

 

Natasha shrugged, toweling her face off and, Steve suspected, laughing to herself. "Never mind. Look, I'm off to take a shower, see you later."

 

"Nat. Wait."

 

She stopped at the door, raised her eyebrow quizzically. "Yes, Steve?" she said sweetly, and he suspected again she was making fun of him. Which was... okay in his book, he didn't mind, really.

 

He opened his mouth to ask his actual question, then faltered at the last moment. "So... there's something going on with Thor and Darryl, is there?"

 

She rolled her eyes, _again_. "Even you're not that clueless. Out with it. What did you really want to talk about?"

 

Steve sighed, got up, made a few steps in her direction. She was now standing at the door as if she could disappear at any moment and he'd better hurry if he wanted to get anything out of her. He compressed his lips in pure self-irritation. Why was talking so difficult? Even with Natasha? He'd known Natasha since he was 19, so almost 14 years now. They'd been close since they first set their foot into the Academy.

 

"If I asked what you thought of the new cadets, you'd still give me a hard time, right?"

 

"Uh-huh," she said. "Although I could probably talk to you about both Jessicas or Daisy or Cage if you wanted."

 

Steve took a breath. "Um... remember how I asked you to keep an eye on Stark?"

 

Natasha gave him a slow, exaggerated blink. "Since we're apparently having a teenage era revival, what is it you wanted to know? If he likes you back?"

 

Even though he laughed out, Steve's face was burning. He could tell she could tell, and he could tell she found it amusing and it made him feel even more awkward. "That's not..." He pressed his fingertips to his eyelids for a moment. Let himself be in darkness. Then he opened his eyes. "Yeah, all right. I'm being an idiot about it. Nothing can ever happen on that front. You know it, and I know it, and that's it. But I actually... I _really_ want to know if he's fitting in? He's – don't give me that slow smile, for gods' sake – he's older than the others, and different, and he's unused to authority, and I don't know what to make of him. So I wanted to know what you thought. He's good – he's very good, actually – but is he going to stay good, once he's out in the Black? Is he going to panic? Is he going to be rash, like the elder Quint brother was?"

 

Natasha leaned against the wall and studied him for a moment. "You're really worried," she said in mild wonder. "Steve, do you think it matters, really? Everyone's living on borrowed time here. Who here is going to survive this? Why are you making me say the things you already know?" Suddenly she sounded exasperated. Her words finally rang true, and Steve realized all her other remarks had seemed somehow hollow. Maybe it was because he actually knew her too well. Either that or because he was attributing his own thoughts and feelings to her. Or was she just voicing the general undercurrent of quiet despair and apathy, running rampant among the crew, which was one of the reasons everyone was so fucking cheerful when they weren't having secret nervous breakdowns or getting drunk?

 

"I think it matters," he heard himself say. Then, more forcefully: "It matters to _me._ It _matters_ what we do, it matters _how_ we do it. And yeah, we are going to survive." _I hope._ "I intend to. And I intend to train my new pilots the best I can, those that can be trained, and I'm going to keep my old pilots alive, and I'm going to get my injured pilots back from the infirmary and make them better." His voice was gaining force as he spoke. "And you know what, we are going to fight, because there is no other option, and we are not giving up."

 

He was starting to feel silly about it, but he stomped on the feeling.

 

"How?" she asked quietly. She didn't sound dubious, just thoughtful.

 

Steve shrugged, a little belligerently. "I don't know," he said. "Together. I'm still working on the details."

 

Natasha took a step in his direction, put a hand on his shoulder, stared into his eyes for a moment. Then she nodded. "Okay," she said as if something was now decided. "We'll do that, then."

 

The relief felt strange, like letting out a breath that had gone stale in his lungs without him noticing at all. "Yeah," he said, and because he suddenly felt he could, he added, "I almost kissed Stark today."

 

It was worth it, if only to finally see Natasha speechless for once. "Uh," she said, "So I can stop trying to set you up with cute marines, then. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say now. Did you like it? Is that what I should ask?"

 

"It... didn't happen."  
  
"Why not? Did he not want you to?"

 

Steve gave her a helpless look. "I don't know, " he said, fibbing a bit. He rubbed his forehead a few times. "That's not the... Look, the fraternization rules are there for a reason."

 

Natasha let her eyebrows climb slowly. It seemed they'd never stop. " _Really?_ " she said. "That's what's stopping you? Out _here_? I know you want to fight the good fight, we've already established that, but if you fool around with Stark for a bit, who's going to find you out? Here? Who's going to report you? Who's going to _prosecute_ you? Steve, they don't have another captain of the air group, they don't have another flight instructor, and they most definitely don't have another battle leader, they..."

 

"You keep saying _they_ when you mean Fury," he said reproachfully. "And you know it's not about that. It's... I don't know how to put it. I feel like, if we let one thing like that slip..."

 

"It's a slippery slope?"

 

"Sort of, yes."

 

"Steve, I was being sarcastic."

 

"I know. I wasn't." He sighed. "I _do_ think that in these circumstances we need to... Maybe we have to make _allowances_ , here and there, but I don't think _this_ should happen. I'm not going to make allowances for _myself._ Because I'm his superior. Because, if he advances in rank, people will think I'm the reason why. If he fails, it will be me that's holding him back. You know how the rumors are. You _know_ how they affect morals."

 

"It's mostly just us that are left," Natasha said slowly. "You. Me. Sam. Clint. Who's going to mind? And I know what you are saying, but, looking at it from a different perspective, _in these circumstances_ , shouldn't we live the life to the fullest?"

 

He looked at her askance, and she just shrugged. "I'm not saying we _should_ ," she added noncommittally. "I'm just asking for your opinion."

 

"Why were you so shocked?" he shot back, changing the direction a bit. "When I told you."

 

Her eyes went softer. "I was surprised because it's _you_ ," she murmured. "You usually take a lot longer to warm up to someone, and then ages to act on it. And I was aware there was some chemistry between you and Stark, but I'm still surprised at your choice of... the object of your affection, a little bit."

 

"I didn't say affection," Steve said quickly.

 

"Attraction, then?" Natasha ventured and he nodded reluctantly. "Appreciation? Obsession?"

 

"Attraction's fine," he muttered, a bit gruffly. And then: "You don't like him much, do you, Nat?" He had not idea why this realization hurt a little. No, really, he had to get a grip. His lips twisted into a wry smile. "I'm not sure I like him much either, as such. You know."

 

"He's charismatic," Natasha said noncommittally.

 

For some reason, Steve found this a bit funny. "You hate him, don't you," he said. "That's _okay_."

 

She gave him a look as if he was crazy, which, coming to think of it, may well have been the case. "No, I _like_ him," she said. "But he seems to be too much of a self-centered prick to be your type."

 

"I have _varied tastes_ ," he said dryly. And, just in case she didn't catch the sarcasm, which she surely did: "From my _numerous_ partners, you can definitely derive a _type_." Still, very quickly he went back to serious. "It doesn't really matter, anyway. Maybe I'm just lonely. And going a little bit insane, just like everyone else."

 

"Maybe," she said without an overabundance of conviction. "You are holding out _fine_ , you know. _Too_ fine. Which is exactly what worries me."  
  
"I'm all right, though." Steve put it out there like an unbreakable shield in front of him, even if his previous statement belied it.

 

"Sure you are."

 

"Okay, but please don't start talking about letting off some steam."

 

"I wasn't going to."

 

"You think he's self-centered?" Steve asked.

 

"You think he's _not_?"

 

"Well, he sure looks it." Something in that statement sat wrong with him, even though he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Steve considered for a moment. "The way he inspired the other cadets to run," he went on slowly. "To... work together, to actually do something, achieve something – I mean, I know it's just a silly game, but it's still very good exercise. And it got the old pilots and the cadets to do something together."

 

Natasha inclined her head for a moment, raising an eyebrow, as if debating this with herself. "Perhaps. But would he still take part if someone else was the leader?"

 

Steve shrugged. A good question. He had his doubts about the answer, but he was determined not to jump to any conclusions.

 

"Also," she went on, "don't you think he's enjoying your private little war a bit too much?"

 

"Private war?" Steve felt a small burst of laughter begin to build. "Wait, that's not the same as _The_ _Tiny... War_ , is it?"

 

"No," Natasha said, amused. "This one's between the two of you. I thought you might be unaware of it."

 

"Us two? Me and _Stark_?"

 

"The game of perseverance," she said dramatically. "The battle of wills. Who will hold out and who will fold? He's very determined to win."

 

"He said that?"

 

"No, but I see it in his face every morning as he forcibly drags himself out of bed."

 

Steve was silent for several seconds. "When I told him to go for a run, it was almost a joke," he said. "I didn't think he'd keep it up this long."

 

"I think," Natasha said, "that's exactly the point here."

 

"Exercise is healthy," Steve said.

 

Natasha shrugged. "Of course."

 

"He wants me to tell him he can stop, doesn't he? Wants me to actually say it."

 

"Are you going to?"

 

Steve shrugged. "Yeah. He doesn't _have_ to do it." Inexplicably, Steve was starting to feel kind of bad about the whole thing. This wasn't Stark realizing running was good for him, nor beginning to enjoy it, either, like Steve wanted to believe. This wasn't an attempt to impress him, either, the way he had secretly imagined. The cadets got plenty of obligatory physical exercise during the day, a lot of strength training, some cardio. And, with the whole tight schedule, the training and the classes, no one got enough sleep as it was. Was there really a need for them to get up two or three hours earlier every morning, so that they could get to do it all _and_ go for a run too? On the other hand, the packed schedule got their minds off other things, such as wondering if their friends and families back home were alive, if they would ever see them again. Still, did he spot signs of exhaustion on some of the nuggets? When you're dog-tired, you can't think well, you can't steer well, your  reflexes get shitty and you make mistakes. Maybe this had gone far enough. Which also brought him to another question. He looked at Natasha thoughtfully. "Do you think it's actually harmful? The war with the tech? Should I talk to Darryl, put a stop to it, do you think?"

 

Natasha considered. "Technically, no one is getting hurt," she said. "Yet."

 

Steve laughed. "You _don't_ want me to put a stop to it?" he said, a little incredulously.

 

"Well." She pursed her lips. "Not before we win."

 

They walked out of the gym after that, side by side, and there wasn't much to say. Steve didn't know why he was feeling lighter, since nothing was actually resolved, but he was, and for now that would do.

 

When they were about to part ways – Natasha wanted to get to the community showers before the evening crowd, and Steve was going to wash up in his own quarters – Natasha put a hand on his shoulder.

 

"Steve. Do you actually really think it matters?" she said, a little too sharply, perhaps. "The fraternization rules? This is not just about the rumors or the morale, we both know it. It's about your own sense of ethics. You don't want to feel you are being unfair. But, do you really think it matters that you are not doing anything, if you look at him like that, if he looks at you like that? Do you really think you are not biased? That it's not influencing your judgment?"

 

This wasn't Natasha telling him the rules didn't matter. This was not Natasha telling him he _was_ biased, either. It was his friend, asking the hard questions, like she tended to. Steve leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "That's something to think about. Thanks, Natasha." She seemed a little surprised, but just shrugged.

 

Later on, Steve said to himself: _It_ does _matter, if I try to stay unbiased. It_ does _matter, as long as I'm aware of what I feel. If I try to do better and to keep my feelings in check and distance myself, if I strive to be the fairest I can, it matters. To me, at least._ And: _That's the best I can do, right now._

 

***

 

Well, outright rejection certainly stung worse than an implied one, but this way at least he _knew._ Tony told himself he didn't give a fuck. No fucks to see here, move along. Find a different fuck-dispenser for your fuck-dispensation needs.

 

The days flew by, and he did his best not to give two thoughts to how the Rogers' attitude towards him had changed even further. There were no more attempted jokes or awkward kindnesses. Rogers began absenting himself from Tony's lectures. (But the lectures were drawing to a close, anyway, so that part of his life was over too; Tony told himself – very firmly – he was not going to miss it.) Cap still instructed him personally – that was unavoidable, obviously – but that was pretty much the only time Tony ever saw him. He did his best to keep his distance too. Strictly businesslike, that was the ticket to that cruiser. Tony knew how to do businesslike, sure enough, now that he knew his attentions weren't welcome. Between the two of them, they managed to keep the verbosity to a minimum. Tony did his best to not be late, so that they wouldn't have to discuss that. He wouldn't even say hi, which was pushing it perhaps, but he found that a half-assed salute, in this case, did wonders. They would discuss the previous session, as tersely as possible. Then they would get on with the new exercises or repeat the old ones. Without too much experimentation with high speeds during the full gravity simulation. There will be more time for that later, Cap had decided. He also now preferred to sit in the instructor's chair, where he couldn't lean over Tony or guide his hand. Tony failed to acknowledge his presence whenever it was possible.

 

Well, he was being a dick, probably. That was what his attempts at neutrality came down to most of the time. Stinging resentment wasn't an ideal companion to neutrality.

 

In the meantime, he had breezed through the tactics exam, and, to the surprise of many, the physical exam too. As someone who loved flying, Tony was used to keeping in good form. All pilots needed to, both planetside and here. He'd got a little slack since the whole disappearance-from-the-known-space hoopla,  but it was easy to get back on track. Some of the other cadets weren't so successful, but this was no Academy. If you flunked, you didn't get to hang your head and  go home in shame, no matter how much you may _want_ to. You took some remedial classes. You worked harder. You tried again. That was that. The pool of possible cadets was very limited, and their own sad bunch was crème de la crème.

 

When the time came for the preliminary exam in basic flight, Tony wasn't particularly worried, and despite the Cap trying to play a hardass, Tony passed. Of course he did. He even got a curtest, tersest "Well done, cadet." He couldn't resist but bow his head graciously and drawl: "Why, thank you, Captain." He regretted it immediately. He didn't have to sweat it much, though; they both pretended he hadn't said anything.

 

He found out how much of a hardass Cap was being with him only after he talked to the other cadets and heard what their exams had consisted of. _Well, up yours,_ he'd thought, too tired to work up a strength for flipping a bird in the general direction of Cap's office. After that he crashed and slept like he hadn't slept in ages.

 

Despite all his efforts to the contrary, though, on the inside it still _burned._ The rejection itself  burned, but that wasn't all. Tony was used to conquests, but also to rejection. He'd liked playing the field at some point in his life. You do that, you'll get plenty of experience with both. But he somehow felt he didn't deserve the sheer coldness that had resulted from those unfortunate events in the simulator.

 

He may have set The Game in motion, yes, but without two players it wouldn't have been a game. Rogers had been responsive. Rogers had not only _responded_ , thinking back – he had made jokes, initiated touches. Even when Tony had decided to not pursue it any longer, it was _Rogers_ that turned him back around, that turned his head, that laughed with him and put his hand on Tony's and... it could have been just plain teaching, but it _hadn't_ been. Tony wasn't stupid.

 

And _then_ he'd turned him down. "Just don't." _Well_ , Tony thought again, _fuck off right to the nearest moon._

 

He could see now what this was, for Rogers. He _knew_ , he'd experienced it himself a time or two. It was unwelcome attraction. It was like that time when he'd started getting hard-ons for that separatist asshole that claimed planet Virgon would do better on its own and why share resources with less rich colonies when they could profit from the war. For a time, Tony kept battling a searing desire to throw the jerk politician over the table and fuck him silly out of sheer frustration. A few times the things did get a little heated and it almost happened.

 

Well, this was like that, only he was the object of unwelcome desire, this time around. Steve probably hated the fact he was attracted to him. And he was better than Tony at controlling it. His righteous ass probably never even considered hate-fucks an option.

 

Okay, hate was probably too strong a word.

 

 _So. Dislike, then. We're back to that_ , he thought, without a doubt this time, and hated the fact that it still stung and itched like a million tiny mosquito bites.

 

 _Mosquitoes_ , he thought in order to distract himself while he was falling asleep. _To think I'd ever miss mosquitoes. But – the damp Virgon air and hot jungle nights and the constant buzzing cloud that surrounded you if you stayed out for too long, angry because you, in your protective gear, were untouchable._ Well, he did miss it all.

He also thought: _Why so much dislike, though? What exactly did I do? Except for being myself._

 

And: _Well, apparently that was enough._

Near the beginning  of the mutual-ignoring-fest, Natasha had cornered him and asked, so casually Tony thought she might explode with off-handedness:

 

"So, what do you think of Cap now that you know him better?"

 

He kept looking for a barb in her words, but couldn't really find any, so in the end he shrugged, and grinned, and returned casualness for casualness like bullet for bullet.

 

"Guess he's cute; I'd do him," he said, just to be obnoxious.

 

Natasha rolled her eyes so hard; it was just for him, and it almost made him feel all warm and fuzzy.

 

"Cute?" that was a Jessica, who'd apparently been listening. "He's a panty dropper."

 

"Shut up, you're making Steve uncomfortable, over down the hall." That was Clint's contribution.

 

"Oh, I don't know, Drew," Tony replied. "I don't think that, even in the broadest possible sense of the word, what we are wearing can be called _panties_."

 

And so the conversation strayed and meandered on, away from Natasha's question. The crisis was averted. Tony wasn't in the mood for heart-to-hearts with anyone, honestly. Well, maybe Rhodey (definitely Rhodey), but Rhodey was still stationed on the other ship, and Tony still had no means of contacting him outside of an emergency. He highly doubted his moping would be considered an emergency any more than what they were wearing under the fatigues could be called panties. _Why, hello, commander Fury, could I please use a secure connection so that I can tell my best friend about my romantic woes? Why, of course, dear boy_ (Fury would answer) _, here, have one of my kidneys too while you're at it._

 

Natasha still gave him a sharp look but didn't comment further.  He was perfectly okay with that.

 

Tony kept running every day. He was going to drown in his grim determination if he had to.

 

Cap stopped him in the corridor, a day after Tony'd passed preliminary basic flight (the real test would come after they entered a viper cockpit and exercised in real world conditions). The first thing Tony thought was _what did I do **now**?_ Because, of late, he really didn't. After the demerit and with the relations with the tech getting into the whitely heated area, he'd stopped going to the illicit bar. Since the cadets still weren't welcome in the pilots' R &R, he didn't even drink. Unless Rogers was going to lay into him for the war with the tech, in which case... okay. Tony'd handle that too.

 

"Hey." Steve was wearing one of his uncomfortable smiles Tony'd learned to recognize. Because he hadn't been watching the man's every move at all, oh no. Also, he wasn't a creep for it. Also, he really had to stop thinking of him as Steve because that was going to bite him in the ass one of these days, and besides, Tony had to remember not to like him.

 

Tony nodded. He could already tell this was not going to be a reprimand, and he was mildly puzzled now. He inclined his head, studying Cap. He looked almost like in the days before he'd decided he was done with Tony, only even more self-conscious. Tony had to resist the urge to say something semi-provocative just to see him blush.

 

_Nope._

 

When Steve gestured for Tony to follow him, Tony expected him to lead him into the office, but Steve seemed to change his mind at the last moment. He paused at the closed door, considered something for a second, then turned to Tony.

 

"Just a quick word."

 

Tony kept his face straight. Nodded at him, chin-up, doing his best to seem... well, disinterested. Then he made himself say: "Yes, Cap," to preserve a modicum of civility.

 

"You've passed the physical," Steve began, swallowed.

 

Tony just nodded. See, this worked marvelously too. Just let him squirm. He didn't have to say anything, even. "Uh-huh," he made himself say anyway.

 

Cap seemed to finally get to the point. "You don't have to go running every morning any longer if you don't want to, you know. I think... I've made my point. And, er... you've done very well. Inspiring the others to join you too. Very good."

 

Tony felt an unwelcome warmth start to rise in his stomach at the praise. It seemed like such a long time since Steve had said anything nice to him. _You're not twelve_ , he told himself firmly. He didn't need the praise,  didn't care about it, and especially not for something so trivial as this.

 

"Running's fine." He forced a shrug. He'd hated every second of every minute that it took him to cast off the pretty blankets at 4.30 a.m., and put his feet down onto the icy floor, and splash water into his grainy eyes; other than that, it was fine, yeah.

 

Steve brightened at this – the guy genuinely brightened, his whole face lit up. And no matter how pretty it looked, Tony felt irritation build, mostly at the fact he still noticed how pretty it looked.

 

"Yeah, running feels really good when you get used to it, doesn't it?" Cap was now saying. "I just wanted to tell you that, if you felt any pressure from me to keep doing it – don't. You're all right. Don't.. er. Don't overexert yourself."

 

His earnestness was worryingly sweet. It was also very different from the way he conducted himself lately. It felt like a peace offering (not that they had been at war or anything). No, wait; it almost felt like something more. Tony stuffed a hand into a pocket and curled it into a fist because gritting his teeth would probably be impolite. „Nah. Nope. You know what, I don't mind the running at all. I think I'm going to keep at it. Indefinitely." Because, before, he'd kept telling himself he was just waiting for Cap to break and say _stop_. And now all he could think about was the smile that brightened up Steve's face at the misconceived idea Tony _enjoyed_ it – as if running was Cap's own invention, somehow. And yes, words had this tendency to escape from Tony's mouth unchecked.

 

He kept cursing himself afterwards, especially as he cast off the blankets the next morning, _again_. When he replayed the conversation in his mind (and again; and – shamefully – _again_ ), he convinced himself most of it had been in his head. The almost shy words, the sudden smile. Tony had seen what he'd wanted to. Steve was obviously making an effort to push past the awkwardness and be nice, that was all. He was the commanding officer here, it was his place to set this right. Pretend as if nothing had happened. Tony decided that the decent thing to do would be to ease up on him. Ease up with expressionless looks and curt answers. In the end, they were forced to be here, indefinitely, together. They should aim for civility.

 

***

 

"I either screwed up that conversation or he actually loves to run," Steve told Natasha without much preamble as he banged his tray next to hers in the pilot's canteen. His voice was wry.

 

"Oh, he _loves_ it," she said without batting an eyelash. "You can feel it in the way he stumbles around in the morning, cursing at himself, saying _you absolutely couldn't keep your fucking mouth shut, could you_."

 

"Ah," Steve said. "That's what I thought, somehow." He didn't know why he found it so amusing.

 

And yet, despite himself, he had to admit the strained relationship with Tony stung. They were still extremely uneasy around each other. Steve told himself he was over this. He'd been trying long and hard. He told himself it was just the fact that he didn't like any kind of discord within his ranks, and as a captain, it should be his job to keep things even and working. If he were to ever work well with Tony – and, given their numbers, he'll have to – he should try to build some kind of team spirit and a working relationship. They didn't need to be friends, exactly; they probably couldn't be. They were so vastly different. But, he thought, he should try _something_.

 

He wondered if he should invite the new cadets into the pilots canteen that evening – all of them. As the captain, he could break the unwritten rules. Still, it was never a good idea for the ranking officer to interfere with the ranks' traditions and small games. Like the hazing, for example. You didn't step in unless it really got out of hand – unless it turned to outright bullying or if real aggression was springing from it. This time around it didn't happen because the nuggets had diverted the effort into the war with the tech. No-interference policy was sometimes for the best. The guys needed to find their own balance, their own dynamics. Things seemed to be working too. Both Clint, Sam and Natasha thought it was all going well.

 

Something else, then, perhaps. Something... fun, or at least not deadly serious, and, most important of all, something that wouldn't require him to have one-on-one talks with Tony because he just tended to put his foot in his mouth with him.

 

And then Steve had an idea. Natasha was not going to like it. And he'd probably have to have a chat with Darryl afterwards, too.


	6. The Mechanic's Music

It was the next morning. This time around Tony recruited both Jessicas, Luke, Bruce and Quentin Quint (whom no one liked much, so mostly everyone referred to him by his full name, even though there were hardly two Quint's to be found in the remnant of the fleet, let alone two Quentins). All of them, plus Sam, who seemed to be their senior buddy that morning, were circling the tech deck at a moderate-to-very-decent pace. They were all getting better, fitter, faster. Tony wondered what the prank would be this morning, when the creeping smell of – _oh, no_ – urine reached his nostrils. Well, that was... new. And mildly disgusting. Nimbly, he jumped over a puddle.

 

"Mind the piss," he called out over his shoulder, and then, again "Piss", when he hopped over the next one. Well, the techs will certainly have to scrub their own deck, so, he thought, this seemed like pissing in the wind, pun fully intended. (He'll have to make that joke later, although perhaps it was a bit too obvious.)

 

This was when – of all people – Steve's wide frame appeared from behind, streaking over the lower deck at an almost inhuman speed. He passed Tony and his fellows with a wave and called: "On your left!" His back in a tight T-shirt and his butt in a tracksuit offered an entirely unfair vista, Tony thought. He almost stepped into a puddle before he remembered not to stare.

 

"Is he for real?" he muttered to himself.

 

"Yeah, he'll do that," Sam answered, grinning blithely, seemingly not surprised at all. He was obviously referring to either Steve's speed or his remark; not to the way the muscles of his back moved under the fabric or the way the hem of his short sleeves practically cut into his biceps.

 

What does he want? Tony wondered. What's he doing?

 

"Cap, mind the piss!" Tony called after him over the frog in his throat, but Steve was already jumping over a puddle, and his back disappeared into a side corridor.

 

"It feels like," Bruce said, "we've just been endorsed."

 

"It feels like you've just been shown what kind of physical preparedness you might need to actually do this," Sam responded in dry tones.

 

Tony tended to agree with Bruce on this. It was a show of support for the cadets. Because, if he thought it was something else, then he'd have to think it was aimed at him personally. (It _is_ , his gut suggested mercilessly.) And if it was aimed at him, than it would have to be some kind of flirting. After the last rejection and the subsequent coldness, that would be weird. As if they were back at the game. Only, this time Tony somehow felt like a mark. _No_ , he told himself firmly. He was overthinking this. He trusted his own read on Rogers, mostly, and even if he didn't, all the senior pilots claimed him to be straightforward to a fault.

 

Also, this infatuation business had to stop ASAP. It was going nowhere. He needed to focus on other things.

 

"Meh," Tony said, insincerely. "Anyone can sprint." He leapt over a puddle and landed with a small splash, into a strategically placed another. He swore.

 

***

 

It was perhaps an hour later, when Tony stuffed his sweaty running clothes into the laundry chute, wrapped himself in a towel and stepped out of the showers. It was then he noticed the hum change.

 

The song of the ship's engines was a multilayered symphony. It was their constant companion, day and night, and people mostly stopped noticing it. Still, Tony found himself listening to it often. It kept reminding him of how flimsy the ship was, how tiny and human-made and fragile the thing that kept them all from dying. But, however delicate, the hum also reassured him everything was still okay, everything was still in order. He was used to listening to the buzz of various engines since the days he raced on Virgon, since the days he test-flew his own new models, too.

 

And right now, the hum was different; wrong. Tony stopped. Listened for a moment longer. Then he picked up speed  and hurried towards the elevator at the other end of the pilots' deck. It would be a bad idea to start spreading panic now; people milling about would surely block the corridors. Also, perhaps he was wrong. He would try and check first. _Then_ he would raise the alarm.

 

Near the elevator that connected their floor to the lower deck, the thrum altered again, becoming slightly higher in pitch. Someone had turned the basses down, the treble up. The music of the ship was modulated all wrong.

 

 _Well_ , _shit_ , he thought. Gales and Dales finally did  it. They were probably working on the next prank, and they tampered with something they weren't supposed to tamper with. They were pros, most of them. They should have known better. But no, of course they wouldn't – they all thought they knew what they were doing and that it was _safe_ , that _they_ were safe. Human mind was a piece of damnation. It tricked itself into believing in an illusion of safety in order not to go completely insane at the inconceivable expanse of the universe all around.  


_It's all my fault_ , Tony thought. _I've started this – the stupid war, the... everything. I should have known it would end like this. Why in the name of hell were I deluding myself that people would behave rationally? People are a ticking bomb. I should know. I'm one. But somehow I'd forgotten for a nanosecond, and here we are._

 

Then, a certain dampening in the sound. A series of low thuds from above. As if a party on the upper floor of the dorm had gone over into a too wild a territory; drunken redecorating, pushing furniture about, wrestling in spilled potato chips, things like that.

 

This was all shades and colors of not-good-at-all. Especially the thuds. The flooring between the decks was so thick and well insulated that normally you couldn't hear anything from the deck above/below you. The thuds meant something bad. Something bad and big and hard, like a piece of engine, like a huge crate, like a small flyer craft. Falling. Bouncing around.

 

The above/bellow thing on a gunstar class ship– on any modern spaceship – seemed skewed until you got used to it. The gravitation strips were installed in the deck floors in parallel lines, to avoid more amusing aspects of gravitation fields that, unfortunately enough, were spherical in shape. It would be impossible for a floor of one deck to act as a ceiling to the deck below, like in a normal building. In such a case, grav fields would overlap and people and things on the deck below would have an unfortunate tendency to gravitate towards ceilings. So, on a spaceship, the decks had to be set floor to floor or ceiling to ceiling. The pilots' accommodation and the tech deck/landing bay were ceiling to ceiling. And the tech deck itself was generally considered 'lowest', insomuch that it was right next to the lower hull itself, so that the access to the side engines would be easier. It didn't share a floor with another deck.

 

If things were falling against Tony's ceiling, it meant that something big and heavy was also falling against the _tech's_ ceiling, which, consequently, must mean there was something very wrong with the gravitation strips. They must have tampered with them, the idiots, trying to organize the next prank.

 

As Tony broke into a run, his bare feet thumped against the floor in the rhythm of _stupid stupid stupid._

 

This part of the corridor wasn't in much use this time of day. Cap was standing a the end of it, fiddling with the elevator commands. At the sight of his back, his shoulders, Tony's breath hitched. It took him a second to remember what he was doing there and how important it was. There was no one else around.

 

Cap turned as he heard Tony's running footsteps, his eyebrows climbing and climbing.

 

"Elevator not working?" Tony asked. He was only slightly winded.

 

Cap shook his head, cleared his throat, for some reason looked quickly to the side. "I heard the thumps," he said. He sounded very calm, though. "I thought to check if the people were okay first." He waved towards the phone on the wall. "Darryl's phone line is not working, and I can't get through to the bridge either."

 

Phone, right. The thinking-people option. It had never even crossed Tony's mind. All he could think was that he should check the engines as soon as possible. "But what's with the phone line?" Tony's question was rhetorical. If the phone lines were down, it spoke of a more general damage than just the grav-strips.

 

The ship had no surveillance systems. The ship had no normal comms. No network. All of that had been removed during the refurbishment. As the war had shown, the Cylons – intelligent machines that they were – could infiltrate those systems. They acted as a super-virus, and no firewalls helped. The human race was now forced to use old, outdated equipment, immune to the enemy infection.

 

Could _this_ be Cylons? Attacking? No, surely not, they would have shown on the radars, surely. The ship would have been on alert. This had to be some other kind of malfunction, but whatever it was, it looked urgent.

 

"Let me see that," Tony said briskly, half-pushing Steve out of the way to get to the elevator control panel.

 

Steve stepped away hurriedly. "Er," he said. "Why are you wearing a towel?"

 

Self-awareness, like a cold draft, brushed against Tony's exposed skin. _Lots and lots_ of exposed skin. No, really, the military issue towels were indecently small and thin, and insipidly grayish, the color of ration bars and mild, covert depression.

 

Well, that towel was what Tony had absently wrapped around his middle as he stepped out of the shower, just before the hum changed. Now he could practically feel Steve's eyes glued to his chest, his upper arms. The response that sprang to his mind was _I can always lose the towel if you like_ , but no, no, there was no time for that even if he wanted to go there, and it definitely wasn't a good idea.

 

No, seriously, he had to stop walking around half-naked. This was ridiculous. But, "Shower," he muttered, and "No time". He waved his hand dismissively, firmly deciding to forget the fact he was standing there with practically no clothes on. With Steve of all people next to him. Close. So very close.

 

He focused on the control panel. "Just as I thought," he muttered to himself.

 

"This must be a grav field malfunction, right?" Steve asked. Of course Steve had figured it out; he was smart. Tony had listened to his lectures. He was an intelligent guy, and he knew his science too.

 

He had apparently nobly decided to ignore Tony's state of undress. Only, it wasn't working, not exactly. He was speaking in a mildly strained voice that Tony badly wanted to be able to brush aside.

 

"Yeah," Tony said. As he toyed with the panel, checking, reconnecting, trying, he was doing his best not to look at him. "The elevator got screwy because the gravitational field on the tech deck got screwy." He kept babbling, providing unnecessary explanations so that he would stop his thoughts from reeling. They really had more pressing problems than some vestigial sexual tension. Still, he felt... wanted. The sensation was searing the skin off his back, made his towel feel sorely inadequate. _No. Focus._ "The functionality of the elevator is dependent on the equilibrium of the gravitational fields, both the one it's departing from and the one it's arriving into."

 

Steve didn't say _I know that, stupid._ Instead, he asked the right question. "Can you make it work?"

 

Tony's fingers now flew over the panel. He was finding his focus. The tip of his tongue protruded between his lips. "I'm trying to trick it into thinking there's still working _g_ up there – sorry, _down_ there."

 

"I didn't know how to game the sensors," Steve said.

 

"Yeah, well." There, _there_. The vibration was perceptible. The elevator was now moving. "I'm a mechanic." He turned to Steve triumphantly, for the moment forgetting both his state of undress and the sexual tension that was – he couldn't deny it – throbbing between them; so much so that you could eat it with a spoon.

 

Steve gave him an earnest look. Raised his arm as if to pat Tony on the shoulder, blushed slightly and jerked his hand back as if burned. "Thank you very much," he managed stiffly, to Tony's growing irritation. _Make up your fucking mind_ , he wanted to say, because this wasn't okay, that kind of looks, of body language, and then nothing again, nothing. He hated himself for caring. He hated himself for dancing to it, like a fish on a string.

 

"I'll go see what's going on down there," Steve was saying, "and you go put on some..."

 

A deep thrumming suddenly resounded through the ceiling. The basses were back in the symphony. Tony looked up sharply, as if he could see through the insulation into the deck above ( _below_ , he corrected himself, peevishly). So did Steve, falling abruptly silent. The sound lasted for a few seconds only, and then the high pitched whine was back with a vengeance. The dull thuds resounded again. Tony swore.

 

He went very still. Things were getting from worrisome to truly urgent. This could easily represent a real, palpable danger for the whole ship. It needed fixing quickly, if it wasn't too late already.

 

"You go tell Natasha to let the bridge know I'm down there. And put on some clothes." Steve spoke quickly, more decisively. "If I'm not back in..."

 

For Tony, worry and irritability were almost interchangeable. Maybe he was that way because it was easier to admit to being irritated than worried. "You're kidding," he was saying practically steamrolling over Steve, forgetting about unimportant things like rank or following orders or whatever. This was a crisis, and he was used to dealing with those, whatever their nature. He was used to making decisions. "What are you going to do down there, exactly? You can't fix this. You go see if the folks are all right and all that. Help out the survivors." _If any_ , his thoughts added, cruelly, and he felt his chest ice over. "I gotta go check the engine, because apparently no one else is doing it."

 

Belligerent and dismissive. Not the best tone to take with your superior, he thought belatedly, but he was in a hurry. Tony had been at the head of his own big company for too long. If something needed doing urgently, he either delegated or went and did it. His crisis mode wasn't overly pleasant, true, but he wasn't used to being relegated to a courier boy when he could actually be of use. He closed his eyes for a moment, made an abortive pacifying gesture and prepared to try to reason with Cap. Because he _needed_ to go check the engine. Evidently no one else was dealing with it or not dealing with it fast enough. Things could deteriorate rapidly.

 

Steve gave him a sharp look, compressed his lips. He too seemed to be teetering on the edge of patience. "You're untested; you've barely been through training. There is no way I'm taking a new recruit with me."  Cap wasn't used to this. He was used to having real, trained soldiers at his command, to giving orders and having them followed. Understandable, that. So was, in a way, Tony.

 

Their eyes locked for a moment in a silent battle. Different impulses fought for dominance inside Tony. Stubbornness and a wish to cut this nonsense and _go right through him_ and do what needed doing on one side. A misplaced wish to impress the man on the other – to show him he could be useful, show him he was good at this. Prove he wasn't just an arrogant asshole.

 

Just seconds later, before either got to say anything, they were interrupted by running footsteps. Thor emerged round the corner, at a dead run. "What's going on?"

 

Steve briefed him.

 

"I gotta see if Darryl's okay." Thor sounded breathless. Steve nodded. Tony fought off a stab of untimely jealousy, because his own reasons for wanting to go down were so much better and so much less purely personal than Thor's. _I gotta see if the_ ship's _okay. I gotta see if everyone_ else _is okay, too. And they aren't, they aren't, they can't be or someone would be dealing with this crap already._

 

They were wasting time here. Tony rounded on Steve. " _I_ gotta check the gravs and the side engines, see where's the problem." This, with more than a hint of strained patience. "There might be a chain reaction. We don't know if the other engineers are in a position to fix it or not. There's no time to...!" Tony was arguing in his best, reasonable voice, because he had a distinct feeling he was about to be sent back to his room without dinner. With both Steve and Thor staring down at him, he was suddenly feeling outnumbered. He felt a bout of inappropriate laughter, a sibling to panic, rise in his chest, but somehow he swallowed it down.

 

Steve closed his eyes and something in his facial expression shut Tony up. The blond seemed to come to a decision in a second. All of a sudden, his face looked very set. "All right. Let's not be stupid about this." He opened an emergency locker and grabbed three jumpsuits and helmets; tossed two to Tony and Thor. "Put these on. We're all going up."

 

"Down." Tony said automatically, before he could fully register what Cap was saying. It was hard to exit the argumentative mode when his heart pounded so. Reluctantly, he recognized thrumming excitement building. He wasn't too proud of it, but at least _something was happening._ Things were moving forward. And he didn't have to argue any longer.

 

"We're wasting time," Thor protested, as an echo of Tony's thoughts, but started putting the jumpsuit on nevertheless. Tony turned his back, swiftly let the towel fall, and pulled the suit on as well. He chose not to think about it. He was used to the community showers after all. _Is Steve watching?_ It didn't matter. It really didn't. It _didn't_.

 

"We don't know if the life support systems are functional or not, Thor" Steve was saying. The elevator door was open now. "Everyone ready? Okay, go."

 

They filed into the elevator, and it got moving. Tony couldn't stop thinking about Steve's face as he switched into full action mode, just before he put his helmet on. How his stance changed, how every sign of reluctance or shyness vanished in a flash, how his eyes brightened and his voice got that crisp quality as he gave the orders. Tony wasn't supposed to find that so thrilling, was he? He did his best to push the feeling away.

 

"Okay, let's formulate a plan," Steve was saying, and Tony almost said _what plan, what is there to plan, what can we base our plan on when we don't know anything about the situation??_  It took a conscious effort to keep his mouth shut. His feet were itching to run to the side engines, and he kept thinking of those thuds he'd heard all the way through the well insulated ceiling, and he kept hearing the uncharacteristic urgency in Thor's voice as he said _I gotta see if Darryl's okay._ He kept thinking of all the faces he'd spent a month with, day and night, while he was still in tech (it seemed like yet _another_ lifetime away). And he kept wondering what would happen if the life support systems had really given out. There were emergency lockers with protection suits, like the ones they were wearing now, at key points, but people panicked. People got stupid when they panicked. He kept seeing the faces in his imagination. Oh, _shit._

 

Steve's voice elbowed its way into his thoughts. "Tony, is it possible that there was a hull breach?"

 

Tony noticed the first name, that slipped from Cap's lips so naturally. There was something profoundly noticeable about it. His own misplaced reactions to Steve were starting to seriously grate on his nerves too. Not the time; not the place.

 

"Improbable," he said, sounding more snappish than he meant to. "Unless something's gone really wrong, the sensors on other decks would have registered it and the alarms would be blaring their ass off."

 

"Right," Steve said. He was all business. "In that case, Thor, you take the right hand corridor," the one where the dorms were as well as Darryl's office and berth, Tony noted – "If it's blocked, try to clear out the rubble as much as you can. Try to get through."

 

"Yes." Thor nodded.

 

Steve cleared his throat. "You, er, Stark. The left hand corridor." That was the one that lead to the landing bay and the storage area and the side engines.

 

"Obviously," Tony said, but Steve seemed to be paying no mind to his snark.

 

"I'll go with you to a point. I suspect there will be some blockage." That made perfect sense, Tony thought. That's where the thumps had come from. "If we can clear the corridor, I'll continue to the lending bay. You go and try to fix the engines. Recruit anyone able on the way, to help you." They were _bound_ to run into someone, because there would be people on shift. Only, what condition would they be in? Well. There's your million dollar question. Tony almost didn't want to find out. At this point, hope was beginning to seem somehow frivolous.

 

"I'll do the engine," he said. "You deal with the Gales and Dales and the lot, k?"

 

He thought he detected a jerk of irritation in Steve. Tony wasn't doing it on purpose, not exactly – whatever he was doing. It was just that his mind was racing million miles a second in every tangential direction imaginable, and he could feel his feet vibrate with the urge to do something, anything.

 

"Cut that out, please," Cap said sharply. He was still polite out of habit, but starting to sound rather put out by Tony's comments. "I'll see about the survivors, yes."

 

The elevator stopped with an unnatural jerk and a worrisome _clang_ , a bit earlier than it was supposed to. They had reached the tech deck, more or less. As expected, the grav field was all wrong. They found out about it as they climbed out and stood on baloonishly light and bouncy feet, on what used to be the ceiling. The corridor was empty. Apart from the _g_ , the readings were more or less stable. The heating appeared wonky, in this part of the deck at least, and the lights were flickering, but for now, if the in-built detectors in the suits were anything to go by, the air was still breathable. Steve promptly tore his helmet off. Tony started to do the same, but Steve just shook his head at him. Tony opened his mouth to protest, but: "Just do what you're told for once," Cap ordered before he could say anything. Tony could practically see he was already regretting he'd let Tony come along.

 

Of all things in the permeating sense of urgency, Tony really didn't have time to worry about the uncalled-for stab of hurt at this. Thor turned to the right.

 

"If everything is in order over there, round up some people, have them put the suits on and send them over to help out," Steve told him as the man hurried off. "Send someone up to inform the bridge of what's going on as soon as you can."

 

"And say hey to everyone from me!" Tony called out. He was throbbing with nervous energy. He could feel the blood drumming a punishing rhythm in his ears. His face felt frozen in a beginning of an uncalled-for grin. He knew he should shut up already.

 

"Couldn't you just... take this seriously for one second, Stark?" Cap's brows were drawn low, his eyes glaring at Tony trough the plast of the helmet. "Lives could be in danger out there!"

 

 _Everyone could be dead_ , was what Tony heard instead, and yes, he damn well _knew_ that already. He didn't need this asshole towering over him, yelling it into his face.

 

Which... wasn't fair, since, strictly speaking, there wasn't any real towering, going on, and the same went for yelling. Not _really._ But still.

 

Tony pushed past him – not hard, but hard enough to let his irritation show – and started down the left-hand corridor. "Then stop wasting my fucking time, _Captain_ ," he muttered, not quite to himself.

 

Steve matched him glare for glare as he went by, but apparently decided he'd deal with Tony's insubordination later. "Let's go," he cut off sharply and took off, taking the lead in two easy strides. Tony hurried after him, half seething and half wondering how in the name of hell this escalated so quickly. It was all particularly depressing because he _liked_ Steve, not that Steve had to know that, of course.

 

The corridor was indeed blocked, a little way in. The equipment lockers along the bulkheads had broken open. Crates had floated from a side storage area and then crashed onto what used to be the ceiling and was now the floor. It was lucky, Tony thought, that the gravitational field from the deck above was weakened considerably, or else all this equipment would be ruined. Still, the field was still strong enough to cause some considerable smashing, and the grav-strips turning off and on and off again had made the stuff bounce around, which hadn't improved the situation in the least.

 

The smoke detector in his suit went off. _Oh, awesome._ It could be a malfunction, of course – what brand were these suits, anyway? As soon as the readings had flickered to life, Tony could see the quality was crap. But no, of course there would be fire somewhere ahead. There are no good catastrophes without a fire.

 

"Smoke," he said at the same time Steve said: "Something's burning." And then, sharply: "Stark, I'll go first, you keep behind me at all times."

 

"Yeah," Tony muttered. "You lie down on top of the flames, I'll walk right over you. Like ants do. Always works."

 

 _I'm like this, that's all, that's how I am_ , he'd wanted to say instead, but of course he didn't. _I can keep a cool head in a crisis, but this waiting is killing me, not knowing is killing me._

 

Steve made as if to turn back, round on him, but then he just shook his head and pressed on. "Cut the chatter." He sounded exasperated.

 

"Shouldn't you put your helmet on?" Tony retorted.

 

Steve spared him a sideways glance. "It messes with the visibility; I need the visibility," he said in a tad milder voice.

 

Tony swallowed any further comments. _He surely knows what he's doing_ , he thought without much conviction. Dread was rising in his throat gradually, like a slow, sneaky tide.

 

He spotted a piece of the bright orange tech suit protruding from under a pile of rubble.

 

"Aw _shit_."

 

Forgetting their squabbling, both Tony and Steve hurried to lift the rubble off. The job was painstakingly slow. Tony's heart was vaguely audible in his ears, like a background beat from far away. _Nope. Not fit for the army in the least_ , he mused, _Fury was right._ He wasn't cut out for this. Not to lift the wreckage off of people who might be living or dead under it. Schrödinger's techs. Well, fuck that.

 

Steve was giving him quick instructions _– lift that end, no, let's do that crate first, okay, good, that's good._ His voice was steady. Like a bright red ribbon in the snow. You couldn't get lost with that voice showing you the way, and Tony just gave way to it. He was used to Steve giving instructions in that unshakable tone – go left, veer to the right, do the barrel roll. Like in the flight simulator. Easy.

 

Had the gravity been stronger, the two of them wouldn't have been able to lift the debris off the guy, not without equipment. But, as it was, the gravitational field originating from the pilots' deck was weakened down here. It got weaker with the distance. It made their steps funny, bouncy. It also made the bulky, heavy wreckage easier to handle.

 

Had the gravity been stronger, Louis would have been crushed by the contents of a storage room that good spilled into the corridor. As it was, he just looked dazed. It seemed he got hit in the head. There was a faint trickle of blood on his temple, down his cheek, but at the first glance he didn't seem to have any serious injuries.

 

"What happened?" he managed, looking at Tony, at Steve.

 

"Don't try to stand up. It's going to be all right. We're taking care of it."

 

That was Steve's voice, an anchor. At the same time, Tony was saying: "Louis? You all right, buddy? What happened here? Where is everyone?"

 

He knew he sounded breathless – an unfortunate effect of being fucking _unable to breathe_ while you wait to see if someone you knew had killed themselves with their own stupidity. Louis had seemed vague, confused, but now his eyes seemed to focus on Tony, which was, Tony supposed, good.

 

"Tony?"

 

"Yeah," Tony said. "It's me. What happened? Who else was with you? Where..."

 

He felt Cap's solid hand on his shoulder.

 

"Go easy," Steve said quietly. He must be aware Tony was panicking; Tony bristled, but fought to keep it under control. Inside him, opposing impulses urged him to drag Louis to the infirmary on one side, and to turn him upside-down and shake the info out of him, on the other. Impatience and the urge to act were mixed with biting worry, creating curious, anxiety-ridden results.

 

"You all right?" he repeated, but with less insistence. Backing off now. "Anything broken and all that, can you tell?" He realized he was modeling his tone of voice after Steve's and felt mildly embarrassed, then promptly forgot all about it. Steve squeezed his shoulder in reassurance, once, then let go.

 

"I think I'm all right," Louis was saying. He rubbed his temple, glanced at his hand; he frowned when he saw blood, then wiped it off on his cargo pants, absent-mindedly. "Where is everyone? What happened?"

 

It seemed they were all repeating the same questions at one another. Tony glanced at Cap for guidance, also hoping the man wouldn't notice. Thanks to the laws of universal irony, Steve was looking directly at him. "It's okay, I can take care of him. You go on, see about the engines."

 

Beyond the area they had cleared, the next instance of the way seemed free of any major blockage, and not far ahead, a maintenance corridor on the right would take him to the side engine. The lights flickered again, somewhat alarmingly.

 

"I wanted to see if he's okay, at least," Tony said quietly.

 

Steve blinked at him. Then his eyes softened. "Of course," he said. Tony replied with a small almost-smile. They, it seemed, had a truce.

 

***

 

It took only a minute, it seemed later, although at that moment the time crawled. Steve ran through a few standard questions – the year, the location, the name – and found out Louis seemed well oriented and aware of his surroundings. He could stand up. A bit battered and bruised – with a sprained ankle, it seemed – but otherwise all right. He had – he admitted with a guilty grin – sneaked off into the storage closet to have a nap since there was nothing urgent to do on shift. Then the equipment started tumbling around, and the ceiling became the floor. He didn't know much beyond that.

 

The man couldn't be of help, though, not with that leg. Steve sent him back with a makeshift crutch, to see if he could make the elevator work again. If he could, he was to get to the pilots' deck and inform Natasha or someone of what was going on. If that was impossible, he was to wait for Thor, who would be coming back that way if everyone in the dorm section was all right and safe. Thor's orders were to evacuate them all onto the pilot deck, then come after Steve to lend a hand.

 

Overall, if they could get any help, that would be good, but there was no time to focus on that. He needed to go on. For all Steve knew, life support could give out at any moment. The important thing was to get to the landing bay. He 'd find the techs on shift there, if they were alive. He suspected he'd find Darryl there as well, which was precisely why he'd sent Thor the other way; if something irrevocable had actually happened, Thor could live without seeing it first-hand; he'd lost too many close friends lately.

 

The _other_ important thing was for Tony to get to the side motors and see if he could fix the damage. Steve's gut tightened and strained like a taut, overextended rope at the idea of sending him there alone. Tony wasn't even a real soldier yet, and yet Steve expected him to act like one – they had neither time nor resources to coddle anyone. Sooner or later all the new recruits would have to go through one crisis or another. And Tony was doing good, he actually was, everything considered.

 

But, in all fairness, Steve shouldn't have brought him along. Perhaps it would have been smarter to form a rescue team, contact the bridge somehow, call the marines in. Do everything by the book. But in the meantime, anything at all could have happened here. He'd worked with what he had at hand instead – a competent engineer; by a mad stroke of luck, someone who could actually take care of the situation with the engines.

 

 _Or get hurt._  

 

Steve, who usually had patience with people, for some reason kept snapping at Tony. Maybe because he was so hyperaware of his presence. He turned to Tony – Tony, who was fussing over Louis, obviously concerned. Tony who had been snippy and smart-mouthed, but obviously wasn't a coward. Everyone had their own way of dealing with nerves, and Steve should have been more understanding. Still, something in Tony's attitude needled him so. It seemed they always got off on a wrong foot, in any situation. Steve remembered his flustered cheeks when Tony in a towel started invading his personal space. Whatever foot they started on, it turned into a wrong foot in a very short span of time.

 

And now Tony had gotten quieter, and worried, and Steve suddenly missed his impertinence.

 

He swallowed. He'll have to deal with his feelings himself – and later.

 

"Turn the comm on and go," he told him in his best, steady voice.

 

The comms in the suits were of low quality. The thick, metal bulkheads interfered with the signal. Everything on _Eirene_ was like that – refitted hastily after it became clear the enemy could infiltrate more sophisticated systems. The comms in the suits were especially lousy, though.

 

"Yeah, but you put your helmet on now too, _Captain_ ," Tony said, although it fell short of a real retort.

 

Still: "You worry about your own task," Steve replied, trying to bat off a tiny worm of warmth in his heart because – was that concern? Was Tony worried about him? He shook off the thought. There was a job to be done.

 

As Tony's back disappeared into the right hand corridor, Steve promptly put the helmet back on (well, it was a sensible thing to do). He checked if the comm was working. Mostly white noise, and then quiet but distinct muttering.

 

"Stark?"

 

The muttering turned into "Yeah?"

 

"Just checking the signal."

 

"The signal is bullshit. Who made these anyway? Were they on sale?"

 

"We got them at a flee market, actually," Steve muttered, but the responding amused snort brought him back to his senses. "We need to concentrate on the mission now," he said quickly, curtly, trying to cut this off because it was so easy to sink into chatter. It was somehow even easier now that Tony wasn't right by his side, with that mocking curve to his mouth and those eyes that always kept Steve on edge.

 

Steve liked his voice, though.

 

Another block in the corridor, and Steve wasn't paying the necessary attention. He pulled at a piece of engine and a whole wall panel crashed down onto the floor beside him. He jumped to the side, barely avoiding it.

 

"You okay?" This from Tony; that concern again, that made Steve's heart clench just a little bit. It was normal concern, concern for a fellow soldier, it didn't need to mean anything else. And even if it did, that would be even worse, wouldn't it?"

 

"Fine," Steve said.

 

"What happened?"

 

"Nothing, You need to concentrate on the job in front of you, Stark." He gentled his tone. "Cut the chatter now, for real. Report when you see something relevant."

 

A huff. "Fine, be like that."

 

The smoke had thickened, but due to the curve in the corridor, Steve could see no flames in front of him. He decided to listen to his own advice for once and tackled another big pile of rubble in front of him. This one was especially tricky, and when he was done, he was sweating heavily. He sprinted forth.

 

As he burst into the landing bay area, the scene he found was better than he'd feared but worse than he had hoped. There was smoke everywhere, thick and worrisome. It crept around his legs, lapping at his knees, but further ahead it resembled a full blown cloud descended into the ship, gray and dense. The bad thing was, it was the smoke of burning engine. The good thing was, the people Steve could see were all wearing either the protective suits like his own, or at least breath masks, and they were fighting the fire. The first person he recognized was Hope Van Dyne, a brilliant but reticent engineer who kept mostly to herself; she'd served on the _Eirene_ for two years with Steve and he couldn't say he knew her at all. He was very happy to see her, though.

 

She was wielding a fire extinguisher, spraying the chemical in the direction of the flight controller's cabin. It didn't seem that much at risk, but it made sense, of course. The equipment in there would be irreplaceable, and without it, the viper crafts would hardly be functional at all.

 

Steve looked around for a second, as much as he could for the smoke, trying to survey the situation. He couldn't see his own viper, and he felt instantly guilty he was looking for it at all. The fires weren't under control. These people needed help.

 

To his left, someone who could be Darryl, although it was impossible to tell because of the smoke and the suit, was, with a few other people, pulling someone from under the viper and _oh hell_. Steve suppressed the impulse to run over. They seemed to have it under control for now. Instead, he jogged over to Hope, who seemed to have subdued the nascent flames, and was taking a moment to rest. She at least appeared free to talk to and was much closer.

 

"It's captain Rogers," he told her, just to be sure, as he touched on the shoulder.

 

She turned abruptly, then seemed to sag in her suit. "Okay, thank the gods," she said. She sounded breathless through her helmet.

 

"Can you brief me?" he asked her. She was a senior engineer and probably the most experienced one after Darryl.

 

"Who's that? Who are you talking to?" That was Tony's indistinct, crackly voice over the comm. Steve'd forgotten to turn the mick off.

 

"Wait a sec," Steve told him. He thought he heard a frustrated snort.

 

"The grav strips gave out, we think," Hope said briskly. "The flyers crashed down, we all crashed down. The fires started. I'm with the fire control team – we can handle it, probably, and in any case there are no more fire extinguishers that are not in use. Darryl's over there, supervising the urgent rescue operations. The maintenance people that were working on the vipers are trapped under the flyers, we think. They need to be got out of here before they suffocate. That team over there could use some help. Are you alone? Does this mean the corridor is cleared? The access was really tricky from this side, we didn't have time to get on that, we..." She took a deep breath, seemed to check herself. "We need to get someone to the side engines. We couldn't get to them from this side, and we had to suppress the fires to some extent before we could get more people on that task."

 

"Tony Stark's dealing with the side engines," Steve said quickly. "Thor's off to check what's going on in the dorms, he'll come over here soon enough too."

 

Hope breathed out. "Okay then. You in contact with Tony right now, sir? Tell him to try and bring the wall sprinkler systems back online as soon as it makes sense to do so. It's not of the highest priority, but it would help a lot."

 

"Sure."

 

Steve sprinted off towards Darryl and the rescue team.

 

"Tony," he said as he was running.

 

"Who was that? What's going on?"

 

"That was Hope Van Dyne," Steve responded, as quickly as he could. "She says to..."

 

"Oh, good!" There was genuine relief in Tony's voice. "She okay? Did you find Darryl? Who all's there? What's happening? Is someone...?"

 

" _Tony_ ," Steve cut him off, and Tony abruptly fell silent. _Oh god,_ Steve thought, _I don't know how to deal with him, and he has no experience whatsoever with situations like this. I have to try to calm him down. I can't expect him to become fully trained for emergency situations out of nowhere._ "Instructions first," he said in a gentler voice. "Van Dyne says you should try and get the fire sprinklers on the walls back online when you can."

 

"Right, right," Tony said. He sounded calmer. "I'll do that."

 

"Hope's fine," Steve went on. "Darryl looks fine – I'm going to talk to him now. The techs seem organized. Some people may be hurt – don't know who yet. The rescue is in operation. I'm going to talk to Darryl now. I'll want your report afterwards. Stay on."

 

"Leave the mick on, okay? Maybe I can hear the snippets here and there. I know you don't have time to..."

 

"You should focus on what you're doing," Steve said.

 

"I can multitask, for fuck's sake" Tony snapped, then took an audible breath. "Sorry, Cap. Listen, I'll work better if I have an idea what's going on over there." Steve couldn't quite figure out how the man could produce so many words a minute, but he did sound a little distraught. _He's worried for the people as much as I am_ , Steve realized. Tony was just too blustery to admit that. Maybe he'd be able to focus better if Steve kept him up to date.

 

Besides, there was something reassuring in hearing Tony's voice, knowing he was all right.

 

Steve sighed. "Fine," he said. He was next to the nearest viper now. The craft seemed in a pitiful condition. Salvageable or not, though – Steve couldn't tell.

 

No one seemed too surprised to see him. No one had the _time_ for surprise. Using a hand-operated lift, Darryl and two techs were pushing the viper up, up, ever so slowly. Smoke was sloshing around their shins like a ghostly gray ocean. At normal gravity, it wouldn't have worked. The craft was too big, too heavy and unwieldy. 

 

Without a word, Steve jumped in, lent his strength. He bowed his knees, put his shoulder under a protruding part of the tail and _pushed_. He could almost hear his bones creak, but the thing was actually moving.

 

"Hey, I got some tools from a locker," Tony's voice said in his ear. And right, of course, the tools, why did Steve not even think of that? Of course he couldn't repair the damage with his bare hands.

 

He grunted in response and pushed harder, straining his back muscles. The weight of the viper was crushing him. Under the helmet, itchy streamlets of sweat were coursing down his temples. And then Darryl was pulling the man out.

 

"Okay, I'm in it up to my elbows," Tony pronounced. "I can see where the problem is. A whole section of the engine is burned out. I'm going to need to replace this, Cap. I'm going to need spare parts. I know we salvaged some last month, but I've no idea if they..."

 

"Wait," Steve said. "I'm going to send you help. They'll bring the parts. The way is clear now. I'll try to lend a hand here."

 

Tony started listing semi-understandable technical terms, but Steve stopped him with a grunt and gestured to Darryl to tune in to their frequency. In seconds, the channel was overrun by techno-babble. Steve relaxed marginally. He spotted another rescue team, clearing out a huge pile of rubble, calling names loudly.

 

Darryl being Darryl, he did seem tired but not overly perturbed. He clapped his hands twice, but since people (being people) didn't exactly fall silent, he just started speaking, briefing anyone nearby as to what was going on, giving terse instructions. He sounded mildly dejected, of all things, and spoke in his typical monotone.

 

"Cap, what's going on? Come on, you gotta tell me."

 

Tony's voice was muffled over the comm. His constant companion. Steve didn't mind one bit. He was now helping clear the wreckage, carefully, so that the precarious balance wouldn't shift and possible survivors underneath end up crushed. For the tenth time that day, he regretted not bringing more people with him, not calling in the marines, anything. But – the time had been so scarce and they hadn't known what was going on.

 

"Darryl's briefing the people about the damage," he managed in between labored breaths. "They are going to collect the relevant parts and send someone to help you."

 

The other techs didn't take the news as well as Darryl, though. One woman buried her mask-covered face into her hands. One man – Steve recognized him as Dale – covered his mouth with both his hands trying – unsuccessfully – to mute a loud whimper that escaped from his lips.

 

"If you're going to fall apart, please do it in your spare time?" Darryl said impassively. "We have a lot of work to do."

 

Hope was already on the job, though; as she disappeared down the corridor, Steve hurried to take over her fire extinguisher.

 

"Van Dyne's coming over with the parts," Steve informed Tony, as he waded deeper into the smoke filled area.

 

"Oh, good," Tony said. "Who else is there? Whom can you see?"

 

Steve stumbled over something on the floor – something that seemed suspiciously soft under his foot. He swore to himself as he bent down.

 

"What?" Tony asked, but then he swore himself.

 

"What?" Steve echoed, and – yes, it was a prone human form on the floor. Moving the fire extinguisher to his left hand, he hauled the person up over his right shoulder and started back towards Darryl's group at a run. The air, at least, was more or less breathable near the entrance corridor; maybe they had spare oxygen masks too. He remembered seeing first aid kits somewhere. Maybe there was still hope. No matter how long it seemed, the whole thing – since he arrived on deck with Tony and Thor – had lasted perhaps twenty minutes.

 

"I found someone in danger of asphyxiation," Steve told Tony briskly. "You?"

 

"I just dropped... _You what?_ Who? And what are you doing now?"

 

"I can't see who, because of the smoke," Steve said, as he emerged into a clearer area. "Here. Oh good, Gale's got him now. He says it's Kurt Kowalsky?"

 

"Kurt?" Tony said. "Is he alive?"

 

"He's alive. I'm going back in." He was chatting to Tony, idly and unnecessarily. He knew he should stop, but where was the harm, really? Tony was waiting for Hope to arrive with the parts, anyway, and...

 

"Wait, _Gale's_ in charge of something? Whoever put... Going back in _where_? Into the fire? _Cap?_ " Tony's voice was becoming more urgent with every word. Then: "Sprinklers or purifiers?"

 

"What?" Steve asked. He located what looked like a chemical fire that could easily be the source of the thickest, blackest smoke.

 

"What's more urgent right now, the wall sprinklers or the air purifiers. What are you _doing_ there, how bad is it?"

 

"It's not very good," Steve said truthfully. "Purifiers, I think. The wall sprinklers won't reach this far, and the ones on the ceiling are..."

 

"Under your feet now, I know, I know," Tony said impatiently. "Here, I'm going to... There, I tweaked it, the results should start showing in a few minutes."

 

"I saw Van Dyne and Darryl, Gale and Dale, Dave and Jim. Jim's hurt."

 

"Crap. How bad?"

 

"I don't know; he was breathing, though. Broken legs, maybe."

 

"Crap. Fitz?"

 

"That's Leo Fitz? He's fine."

 

"Oh, good. Mack? Eric and Billy?"

 

"No..." Steve said. And, with a sudden realization: "You _do_ actually know all their names, don't you?"

 

Tony huffed: "Fuck's sake, Rogers, I worked with them every day. What do you take me for?"

 

Steve couldn't feel the blast of heat through the suit, but he knew it must have been there. The surge of air threw him off his feet and all he could do was cling onto the fire extinguisher and try to land as well as he could. It wasn't a big explosion, really, but it did knock the air out of him.

 

" _What was that?_ " Tony asked. And: "Got the sprinklers now. They were just offline because of the... And there, I extended the range, this should work like a charm. Cap? _Cap?_ Tell me you're still there."  


"I'm still here," Steve gasped as he got back to his feet. He checked the fire extinguisher, then noticed a red light blinking on the primitive control panel of the helmet. He swore. "An explosion, chemical fire," he informed Tony briskly as he waded back in. Maybe it was helping Tony stay focused, he told himself. "Going to put it out now."

 

"A _chemical_... Are you all _right_?"

 

Steve didn't mention that the suit apparently had a leak. If Tony's air purifiers indeed became operational and he managed to put the fire out before something exploded, he should be just fine.

 

"I'm okay," he said tersely. Then he turned the extinguisher on and waded deeper into the area of dancing blue and green flames, flashing through the smoke like big, ghostly suns.

 

***

 

Hope's arrival and the channel dying took place roughly at the same time. Tony suppressed the tentacles of panic reaching up from his stomach. The last words he heard from Steve were _I'm fine_. Probably one of the biggest lies in the history of space travel. He made himself concentrate, made himself brief Hope, analyze the situation and formulate a plan. (He'd always worked well with Hope, Hope was probably the best engineer on the team anyway.)

 

All the while he kept telling himself he'd help Steve best if he did the job in front of him, just like he'd been told to – repeatedly. He also, in a les controlled voice, kept telling himself that whatever happened, it was probably entirely his fault, because he couldn't fix things faster, because he kept distracting Steve with inane questions instead of letting him focus on his own safety.

 

As soon as the frantic repairs could wait a moment, he tried tuning in to other channels. But, instead of Darryl or someone else, he, against all expectation, found Thor. Thor was on the other side of the deck, apparently, and by normal parameters too far for the crappy comms to reach, but somehow it worked.

 

"Where's Darryl? Have you found him? Where's Cap? Stark, you okay?" Thor had asked urgently before they lost the signal. Well, at least he had his priorities straight, eh? A moment later, Tony had the channel working again.

 

"Darryl's fine," he said, hoping it was still true. "I lost Cap's signal, don't know if he's okay. I'm working on repairs. Thor, listen, go up, get help at once, I think. From what I heard, things aren't so great in the landing bay. Get the medics, the marines. I can't get the phone lines to work yet. Just... go."

 

"Right. You sure? Maybe I..." That was when Tony lost him again. He kept trying to tune in, to get _anyone_ , but the stupid comm seemed half-dead, so he got back to his work.

 

The lights steadied. The whir of the engine became deeper, more sonorous. The air purifiers were again singing their quiet song, but now it got stronger, vigorous, pronounced, as the motor became fully operational. Tony hoped it wasn't too late, but a feeling that was eating at his gut told him it was.

 

"We can't just turn the grav strips back on," he told Hope, now that they actually _could_ , at least technically speaking _._ She knew this, of course.

 

"I know that, of course," she said, and then she said, "What if we up the volume slowly?" So that everyone and everything can gently float back to what used to be the floor.'

 

And Tony said, "Good idea," and then he said, "Wait, I have Darryl on the line," because finally, finally he did. And, instead of asking about Cap, he tried to stick to the priorities. He quickly informed his former boss what they were going to do and how. Then he patiently listened to Darryl give calm, thorough instructions to everyone on his side of things. And then there was floating, hovering, a gentle somersault in the air, like in slow motion. Hope kept turning the grav field up, up, until Tony could stand normally without any inclination to levitate off the ground.

 

And only when all that was done, he asked: "Darryl, what's the situation? Where's Cap."

 

"He's been hurt," Darryl responded. Of course, this was when the comms died.

**  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your wonderful reviews. I'm terribly behind with answering them, but RL is crazy, and I'm able to post this right now only because it was already written and just needed some editing. But here, have some hearts instead <3 <3 <3 Your feedback means the world to me.


	7. Fyre, Fyre, Burning Bright

Tony was trying not to run. It wasn't working.

 

Out of breath, he found the landing bay in a far better state than he expected. The smoke was fully cleared by now. Tony didn't know what it had been like, really, but he’d, pictured an impenetrable cloud, a wall, a sea of smoke. Medics were already there, he saw, and the marines. Everything seemed well organized.

 

People were bustling around, but at the moment, they were just white noise to him, the lot of them. An obstacle to finding Steve. It wasn't fair, but hyperfocus could be like that.

 

Tony forced himself to stop and breathe for a moment. He took another look around, took in what he was seeing.

 

The cleanup was already in progress. Everything seemed in order. Vipers, like overgrown birds, shaken and disheveled, weren't being tended to yet. They looked forlorn. In another time, another place, Tony would have wanted to go over, see how they were doing, see if they could be fixed. It had to be doable. He couldn't have lost the possibility to fly _now_ , that he was finally ready, now that he had finally passed the tests.

 

Still, this was just a fleeting thought. He glanced at them in passing. His mind was racing in a different direction. Darryl's voice, his words regarding Steve, were still cutting through Tony's forced calm. _He's been hurt._

 

He needed to find out what happened to Steve. But once he did, that would be that. No doubt any more, but no hope either. What if it was something serious, something irreversible? What then? Well, then it would have been Tony's fault, obviously. His, because he didn't fix the sprinklers in time, his, because he was too slow, too inefficient, because he chatted to Steve and kept distracting him. He practically had no right to worry about his safety, now.

 

And then he saw Steve. He was sitting on a gurney. Actually, he  was apparently trying to get up. A medic was getting into his face, repeatedly poking a stern finger at his chest. Tony couldn't make out the words, but it was pretty clear the medic wasn't done with Steve and Steve did his polite best to disagree with her assessment.

 

It felt unreal, like a scene from a movie. It was as if brain fog had descended on Tony's thoughts. And then it all swam back into focus, and suddenly it was real.

 

The intensity of pure, cool relief that swept trough him took Tony aback for a second.  _When did you start caring this much? How deep are you gone for him, exactly?_ Tony's breaths were now lengthening gradually. Still, standing there and just breathing was pretty much all he was capable of at the moment.

 

He tore his helmet off, tossed it aside. Okay. Easier.

 

Staring at Steve from a distance, he found himself overcome with a strange reluctance. He didn't need to go over, talk to him, did he? The medic was busy; Tony'd just be in the way, wouldn't he? And what could he say to Steve?

 

The medic seemingly gave another order. Steve tried to argue, but the medic insisted, waving her hand at Steve's damaged suit. Up until now, Tony had been fixated on his face, on the alert eyes and the vivid facial expression that better than anything else told him Steve was essentially okay. Right? But now Tony took in the whole scene _again_. He saw the charred arm of the suit, the scorch marks all along his right side. And then the medic was pushing something at Steve, and Tony saw it was an oxygen mask. Something untwistable in his guts twisted. Before he realized what he was doing, he was hurrying over.

 

Steve spotted him and a smile lit up his face despite the mask now pressed over his nose and mouth. Even if the mask hadn't been transparent, the crinkling of his eyes would have been enough. It was so unexpected that Tony stopped for a second; glanced over his shoulder to check if there was somebody _else_ coming from the same direction as he.

 

No one there. There was no one there, but when he looked back, Steve's grin was melting away already, turning into an uncomfortable, controlled expression.

 

"Finger, please", the medic was saying sharply.

 

Steve glanced at the medic. "They did that already," he said, very polite and just a little exasperated. "I'm sure you have more pressing cases than me." The medic crossed her arms and Steve sighed and extended his finger as if wondering if he was ever getting it back. The medic stuck it into a small device.

 

"Not so bad," she commented grudgingly. "Now strip."

 

Steve just blinked at her for a moment, almost in incomprehension.

 

"But I told you," Steve was saying to the medic. There was a hoarseness to his voice that worried Tony. "Your colleague said I was fine. Looked me over. Did the oxymetry already, too. I'm _all right._ "

 

"That was probably triage," Tony said sharply, coming over. More sharply than he intended, as a matter of fact, but he was now close enough to see Steve's eyes, rimmed with red. After a fire, that wasn't such a great sign. Just like the hoarseness, it meant the protective helmet had failed to do its job properly. The fact made Tony strangely pissed. "Triage," he repeated in a tad softer voice, because he wasn't pissed at _Steve_. "Doesn't mean you're fine. Means you're more fine than some of the other walking charcoal sticks. I know you _must_ know that, Cap."

 

The medic had been rummaging around in her satchel, but now she looked up. "Sense," she muttered. "From a... you're a pilot, right? Sense from a _pilot._ Must be my birthday." She turned back to Steve. "Captain, please. I don't have all day."

 

Steve gave her a stubborn look, as if to say _I do._ Then he glanced around. Probably figured it wasn't okay to waste the woman's time. Sighed. He then put a hand up to the zipper of his protection suit. Hesitated. He very decidedly wasn't looking at Tony.

 

As a general rule, on a spaceship there wasn't any privacy. The dormitories were large, the showers communal, and everyone ran around at least half-naked at least half the time. The quarters were tight and you didn't have many options; sooner or later, everyone you knew was going to see your junk. You had to accept that. And yet, Steve, as a higher officer, had his own berth, his own shower.

 

Tony would have thought that a prospect of seeing Steve nude for the first time would be a happy occasion, but: _What if he's hurt, underneath that suit? What if he's actually hurt?_

 

Steve picked that moment to look up at him with something in his eyes that, in someone else, would have been bordering on panic.

 

"Hey, it's only fair", Tony blurted, trying to make light. He shrugged. "After my towel fiasco, I mean," he added by way of explanation. He managed not to say _I showed you mine, now you show me yours_ , or something in that vein, thankfully. Still, even what he _did_ say only turned Steve's cheeks a warmer, pinker hue. And it was a stupid comment, stupid. Tony should have played it cool. He felt his own face  heat up in response, although he wasn't prone to actually blushing, thank gods.

 

A sharp clearing of the throat from the medic made them look away from each other's eyes, abruptly, as if they'd been caught. Steve compressed his lips and started unzipping his protection suit down the front. Underneath, he had a black tank top over a gray tee, just like everyone else. While in any other circumstances Tony would have made a comment to himself – something about it being a size too small, to the joy and happiness of anyone who saw Steve – now he was staring intently at Steve's right arm. The sleeve of the suit looked ripped. And charred.

 

Tony fumbled for something inane to say, a comment to divert attention, to mask his eyes that had gone wide with worry. _Anything._

 

 _A barbecue accident?_ He was going to throw it out there, offhandedly, nodding towards the char marks on Steve's suit. He choked on the words. They just wouldn't come out.

 

Steve peeled the sleeve off. It wasn't stuck to his arm, but it nevertheless reminded Tony of a second layer of skin. He sucked in some air, audibly, in sympathy. Underneath, the skin was red and looked a bit raw, but it wasn't really that bad. With a little care it would be all right. The medic nodded once, to herself. For a moment she almost looked as if she was going to smile at Steve, but then she changed her mind. "I'm going to give you a little something for the pain, anyway, even if it's not all that bad," she said, and before Steve could say anything, she unceremoniously stuck the shot into his upper arm .

 

"I already got an analgesic," Steve remarked, resigned.

 

"Not _enough_ of it, evidently" the medic snapped. "I'm letting this air out a moment, then I'll dress it. Better to be on the safe side."

 

Tony let out a breath, slowly. Steve looked at him. Tony opened his mouth, aware he was just standing there like an idiot, essentially waiting for Steve to take the rest of his clothes off. In the end what he managed to say was: "Hey, Cap. You all right?"

 

Steve just nodded, because he was talkative like that and you could always count on him to pick up a conversation if it was limping.

 

"Go on, then. Hurry," the medic said, and, albeit reluctantly, Steve obliged. He pulled the rest of the protection suit off. He was now in his top and fatigues. The clothing didn't seem damaged anywhere else. Steve obviously didn't have any other burns.

 

Tony wasn't sure if he could handle seeing him strip any further, now that it would – essentially – be just for fun. _I'm just waiting here so I can talk to him afterwards._ But he had no idea what to say to him and was now seriously escape as a possibility.

 

"You?" Steve asked after what seemed like enough time for a birth and death of a star. "Okay?"

 

And – oh, _hell_ – off came the top.

 

Tony gave an amalgam of a nod and a shrug. Either it was nonchalance incarnate or he looked like he was having a fit. No way to know, really. He very much wasn't staring at Steve's bare chest.

 

The fatigues would be next, sweet gods. How's he supposed to handle this? Was it really necessary to make people strip in the fucking landing bay? The medbay was small, true, and already full of wounded pilots, and they probably transported only serious cases over there. But _still._

 

Desperately, Tony looked around. Yep. A number of people was in various stages of undress, or sat there wrapped in blankets, while even more of them waited to be further harassed by the medical staff.

 

"Is this really necessary?" Steve muttered, his hands lingering on the waistband of his pants. "The legs are fine."

 

"I've no doubt your legs are _very_ fine," the medic said dryly. "I still need to inspect them for trauma."

 

She was right. The legs were indeed very fine. Not that Tony had had any doubts.

 

As Steve was putting the fatigues back on, the medic frowned. She appeared too be listening to her comm.

 

"You there," she said, and it took Tony a moment to realize she was talking to him.

 

"Yeah?"

 

"You seem like a sensible person." She tossed him two small packages. "Wipe your hands with a disinfectant, then apply this crap to his burn. You're not doing anything anyway. I'll be back in a jiffy."

 

And just like that, Tony and Steve were left alone. It was perhaps a ridiculous thing to think, in an overcrowded landing bay turned field hospital, but that was how it seemed to Tony.

 

Still very naked from waist up, Steve sat back down on the gurney. Kind of heavily. The movement was, if anything, devoid of his usual grace. Were his eyes getting a tad bleary or was Tony imagining it? Must be the painkillers at work.

 

"Blanket," Tony muttered and grabbed one from the pile next to the gurney. He was about to toss it to Steve, but his hands had a different idea altogether. Before he knew it, he was wrapping it around Steve's shoulders, ever so gently, taking care not to touch the cloth to the injured forearm..

 

"You don't have to," Steve said so softly that for a moment Tony wondered if he'd heard him at all.

 

"Yeah, yeah, you're fine, we heard," Tony muttered as if to himself. The awareness of Steve's bare skin, so close to his fingertips, was burning its way into his synapses. His breaths were getting shorter. All he needed to do was to brush his fingers against Steve's chest; it would be an accident; no one could say it wasn't.  He could...

 

His movements very precise and deliberate, he let go of the blanket, now wrapped warmly around Steve's shoulders, and took a step back. For a moment he allowed himself to admire his handiwork. Then he remembered he had more pressing business to attend to.

 

He took his time disinfecting his hands. When he finished, his breath came more easily and his heart had decided to chill the fuck out, thankfully.

 

He even felt so gutsy he dared a long look at Steve. Seated on the gurney and leaning back on his left hand, Steve seemed strangely at peace.

 

"I actually have to do this, you know," Tony said, gesturing with the package the medic had given him.

 

Steve shrugged one shoulder minuscully. "I'd rather have you do it than the medic." A small smile was playing around his lips, and it had to be the painkiller, it just had to be. If Tony thought those soft looks were coming from  Steve himself, he might have kissed him on the spot, everything be damned.

 

Steve must have read some of it on Tony's face, because: "I _meant_ , because there must be other people who require her attention." He sounded so serious. Apparently, his painkiller-addled brain didn't become scattered all over the place, the way it happened with regular people, but rather very linear, focused on just one thing while all the others faded away into a fog. His speech was just a little bit slurred, and – yeah, still hoarse, which Tony didn't like at all.

 

"The arm," he said. "All right, Cap?" His voice was all business, now – with an effort. But when Steve extended his forearm, Tony took it in a gentlest of grips, his fingers wrapped about Steve's wrist, his thumb resting lightly on the spot where Steve's pulse danced to a steady beat.

 

He thought a shiver went through Steve, but it was probably just chills. Good that Tony had given him a blanket.

 

Tony made as if to crouch in front of him, but it became clear at once that wasn't going to work very well. In the end he sat down on the gurney next to Steve, pulling his arm gently onto his own lap.

 

He swallowed. This was medical attention. He was _helping out_. It shouldn't feel so intimate, so much like... forbidden fruit.

 

He dipped a finger into the gel he was supposed to put onto the burn, then applied a smidgen of it to the edge of the reddened skin. "All right?" he asked, venturing a look up, at the Steve's face that was – _oh, dammit_ – definitely too close to his own. Steve's eyes were big and bright – and, yes, still red-rimmed.

 

"It's some kind of a cooling gel," Steve said. "Feels good."

 

Slowly, using just his fingertips, Tony spread the gel all over the burn area in small, rhythmic circles. The gel was cool against his skin. Steve's arm was, by contrast, like a hot stove. As Tony worked to cover the injured forearm with the thick, viscous gel, Steve closed his eyes for a second, his eyelids fluttering. Tony _caught it,_ even though he surely wasn't supposed to.

 

He needed to talk, to distract himself. Pronto.

 

"So. A chemical fire, eh?" He said the first thing that popped into his head. His own voice sounded sharp in his ears, as it cut the plushy silence that had somehow come to hang between them.

 

It was Steve's turn to perform the nod-shrug-nod sequence of utter nonchalance. Tony had been right. It did look a bit like a seizure.

 

Steve coughed. It wasn't long or terrible, but Tony knew what it meant.

 

"Got a lungful?" he heard himself say, and the dry throat and the absence of brains evidently made him sound pissed – again – because Steve gave him a  mildly taken aback look.

 

"What?"

 

"You inhaled smoke. Didn't you?" Tony made an effort to make his voice more normal, for the, it seemed, umpteenth time during this conversation.

 

Tony's worry, like his attentions earlier, had to be unwanted. He knew that. The two of them had chatted over the comms, yeah, but, in retrospect, it had to be Steve the superior officer helping the green cadet stay calm. Nothing more, nothing less. Tony had no business demanding answers about his condition, but _screw that_ , he thought and shrugged defiantly.

 

_And what about everything else? All the little signals? Is it all just painkillers?_

 

"Look, Tony, it's not... I heal really fast. I'll be fine." Steve didn't sound annoyed, though. A bit stubborn, maybe. He was staring at his lap. And when he looked up at Tony, for just one bright second, his eyes were smiling warmly, even though his lips were controlled. Then he looked back down. Tony could live off that look for days, if he let himself be pathetic. _How deep are you gone for him, exactly?_ The thought surfaced again. But that wasn't what was important right now; that could wait.

 

"Will you put the oxygen mask back on?" Tony knew he had no business insisting and didn't care one bit.

 

Steve sighed, but he obliged. "Are you worried about me, Tony?"

 

The soft, suddenly gentle question was too much for Tony to bear. He'd finished applying the gel; he was now just holding Steve's wrist on his lap. He didn't know how to let it go without making it clear how self-conscious he was about the whole business. It was getting weird very rapidly. And Steve's question? The painkillers speaking. It had to be. Steve would never say something like that to Tony otherwise. He let go of Steve's wrist and returned the arm onto the guy's lap. It was painfully awkward, all of it.

 

Desperately, Tony cast about for something to divert attention.

 

He'd forgotten about their surroundings. In his mind, the two of them were an island in the sea of white noise, but now he again became aware of where they were. The sea melted back into a multitude of people, milling about, doubtlessly doing very useful things, even though, for all the world, they looked as if they were aimlessly ambling from spot A to spot Be for no apparent reason.

 

"Nonsense," Tony muttered, unconvincingly. Aware of insufficiency of this, he jumped to his feet, looking around. A group of techs had spotted them and were coming over, damn them, bless them. Tony grabbed the nearest one by the shoulder, cordially, by way of distraction. "Cap, let me introduce you to someone. This is... Zeke."

 

"Janet," said Janet dryly and wriggled deftly from his grasp. "Let go, Tony."

 

"Yes, okay, the names. I got the point," Steve was saying with a small grin.

 

At the same time: "Captain Rogers was very brave," someone stated by Tony's elbow just as Steve let out an amused snort. Irritated, Tony turned to see Justin Hammer, appearing out of nowhere and insinuating himself into his personal space. Capital.

 

"He waded straight into the very center of the fire and extinguished it before anything else went boom," Hammer continued in his faux friendly manner, nudging Tony with his elbow as if he'd said something remotely amusing. "We all did our part, of course," he continued. "Every one of us showed a lot of courage – I, for example... Well, it would be crude to praise myself." He looked around for a moment, as if expecting one or two of the techs to step in, say something. They just sort of looked at one another uncomfortably. Hammer didn't lose a beat, though. "In any case, let us use this opportunity to end the rivalry between the pilots and the techs." He extended his hand. "Let us shake on it. What do you say, Tony?"

 

Tony rolled his eyes. "I say fuck off," he snapped and shoved his way past. In the sudden silence, his words seemed to echo. It was as if everyone had gone silent right then, and the whole landing bay was staring at them. Hammer's neck blushed bright red as he pretended to laugh it off.

 

Tony did exchange a few words with the other techs in the group, in order to make it clear to them it was only Hammer he was rudely ignoring. They seemed to get it. Still, as soon as he could, he turned to go back to the gurney, and to Steve.

 

"What's all this?"

 

The medic was back in her full, glaring glory. She rounded on the techs. "Who are you, people? Have you been looked over? Yes? Good, then, I'm sure you can find something useful to do _away from here_." Tony half expected her to shoo him away as well, but she seemed to have accepted him and Steve as a package deal, somehow.

 

Tony was distantly aware of Hammer finally moving away with the rest of the techs, but Tony didn't pay him any mind now; he lowered himself back onto the gurney next to Steve – a spot he felt he'd deserved – and watched the medic put the dressing on the wound. Some kind of clear, plasticky material clung to Steve's arm like a medusa and shaped itself around it until it practically became a part of it.

 

Tony cast a look at Steve's face from a corner of his eye; looked away, quickly. He was pretty sure Steve was sneaking glances right back. And it was ridiculous, but it made Tony want to smile so hard he had to fight the urge with all he had. His knees were watery, but that must have been exhaustion. He sneaked another look. For a nanosecond, their gazes met, then they both looked down.

 

While the medic was finishing her work, Tony and Steve let the silence stretch. Just sitting together. What was going on in Tony's chest right then could perhaps be compared to petals slowly opening, one by one. It felt warm, and red, but not like fire (he shuddered at a thought of fire). Because, up until then he could try telling himself that he didn't know Steve for real, didn't know what he was like; was he selfish, perhaps, or a coward? Tony couldn't know that. He'd seen him act kindly towards others, yes, but that didn't have to mean anything. _Anyone_ could act kindly and patiently when there wasn't a crisis at hand. Tony'd never seen him in action before. Before, he kept telling himself that the feelings that were hatching inside him weren't rooted in reality.

 

Well, that was debunked now, wasn't it? Steve had rushed into the fire, alone, in a crappy suit, and done away with most of the aforementioned crisis. For fuck's sake. How was Tony supposed to deal with that? How was he supposed not to fall in love with someone idiotic like that?

 

"You just had to be all selfless and noble, did you?" he muttered resentfully.

 

"It wasn't like that," Steve said, shaking his head with some vehemence. This just rooted Tony firmer in the belief that it had been _exactly_ like that. Because Steve had to be modest, too. Of course he did. That was just Tony's luck.

 

"Yeah, I'm sure it wasn't," Tony said dryly.

 

 _That stupid comment... Why the fuck did I have to say it aloud?_ His words had broken the spell. They had dispersed the cloud of quiet companionship that had somehow descended upon them.

 

"No," Steve said, and Tony had a distinct impression he just said it because he didn't know what _else_ to say. The guy was now looking at his dressing quite studiously.

This was becoming very uncomfortable very rapidly, and when the medic seemed to zero in on Tony, as if seeing him for the first time, he almost welcomed it.

 

"Have _you_ been looked over?" 

 

"No, but I'm fine," he said quickly – too quickly, apparently, if one could judge by the narrowing of the medic's eyes. "I wasn't even here. I wasn't _in_ the fire, I was just doing some repairs, nothing wrong with me." And, since the babbling didn't seem to work: "Look, I'm not taking the suit off here, I'm completely naked underneath; don't ask." Because of course he was. He'd tossed the towel aside and pulled on the protection suit. Aw, this should be a huge fun.

 

If he'd expected some kind of solicitous reaction, he should have known better. She just arched an eyebrow.  

 

"Oh, you're _naked under your clothes_ ," she said dryly. "I've never seen anything like it in my life. Strip, mister. Stop wasting my time. If you're all right, don't keep me from the people who aren't" Then, to herself, she muttered something that sounded suspiciously like: "Fucking pilots."

 

***

 

The aftermath was a bit of a haze, but the sight of Tony arriving in his oil-smeared suit definitely brightened Steve's day. Tony's hair was in total disarray when he pulled his helmet off. He drew Steve's gaze like a magnet and Steve couldn't stop himself from smiling.

 

Tony. Tony was so competent – he'd basically saved the day. And he was coming over, right towards Steve, checking up on him, fussing over him. Wrapping him in blankets. Dressing his injuries. Good gods. _He'd have done it for anyone_ , Steve thought at himself sternly. He'd been wrong about Tony all right. Tony _worried_ for everyone. He _cared._ About Steve as much as anyone else, probably.

 

 _He didn't go to sit by anybody else's side, though_ , a traitorous voice in his head pointed out.

 

Tony had literally sat there holding his hand. His fingers had been gentle, feather-light, as he applied the gel, even though Steve could feel every callus. He'd stared at the back of Tony's hand, because otherwise he would have stared into Tony's eyes. He could now recognize that hand anywhere.

 

Steve hated painkillers, hated the warm, foamy feeling that enveloped you like a hot bath and made it look like a good idea to sit on a gurney with a man you're not allowed to fall in love with, and let him hold your hand, and treasure his closeness, and even close your eyes to savor it better. He really, really, really hated painkillers.

 

They exchanged a few words only, all in all. In retrospect, Steve could barely remember what they'd talked about, apart from asking after each other's health. It felt like more than that, though. It almost felt like something you thought about right before you fell asleep, something you allowed yourself to bask in; and then, tomorrow you ordered yourself to _stop_ already, even though you knew you wouldn't listen.

 

The medic had eventually appropriated Tony for a checkup, and Steve was strangely grateful for a chance to slip away. He needed to wipe the sweat from his eyes, have a drink of water, collect his thoughts. (Collect his thoughts most of all, really.) His heart was thumping in his chest, more intensely then when he had gone into the fire. He was almost surprised the people around him didn't hear it. He could feel his cheeks heating up. He tried telling himself he was being stupid, but no use. He both wanted to talk to Tony and didn't, to sit by him on the gurney forever and to run away. Torn by the opposing impulses, he was satisfied to move away. And then, imagining the hubbub of the activity somehow camouflaged him, he stopped and took one long, lingering look at Tony, half-naked, the protection suit bunched about his waist, as the medic took his pulse and scanned him for injuries.

 

Natasha found him like that. She was a ghost of a hand on his shoulder, a strangely sharp hiss in his ear. "Got an eyeful?" He had enough presence of mind not to jump. He just turned towards her with what he imagined to be a small self-deprecating smile and shrugged.

 

"You've no reason to act pissed," he informed her quietly, as he regarded her expressionless face, her perfect eyebrows. She inclined her head noncommittally. Of course she would be angry with him, because he'd rushed headlong into danger without taking real backup – even Tony and Thor had been rather incidental. And she was probably right, in retrospect, but that was no way to gauge your decisions. When the situation was urgent and there was no time, you made the best call you could and you had to hope it would turn out okay. And you couldn't let your decisions be questioned by your troops, even if the said troops were your friends. Steve was always happy to consult with Nat and the others, but that was different. That was at his own discretion.

 

His thoughts still felt muddled, stale from the painkillers. He wasn't going to get into this with Natasha, not now. He just gave her a steady, unwavering look, and she blinked at him impassively for a moment; a muted battle of wills. A few seconds later Nat shrugged one shoulder slightly, looked away and turned to go.

 

"I believe the XO's on the line for you," she tossed lightly over her shoulder.

 

So, the telephone lines were working again. Oh, joy. He turned to go to a telephone on the wall by the corridor entrance. The handset didn't look too damaged.

 

A quiet chorus of regrets and doubts was whispering in his ear as he walked; why had he made friends with his pilots, why did he have to accept this post, where Natasha was already serving, why could he not have kept his distance, the way he should have? In the end you just watched everyone die, and you went on and on and on.

 

While Hill questioned him sharply, tersely over the phone – and as he answered even more curtly,  he found his eyes drawn towards Tony again. He was now finished with his physical checkup. Steve fought to keep the smile out of his voice as he watched the techs surrounding him and Hope, clapping them on the back, seemingly asking them a million questions. Steve couldn't hear them over the din, but he could see Tony's grin, could see him drink it all in – the attention, the praise. Like a proud cat basking in sunlight. Steve knew this wasn't the end of it, he knew Hill would summon him to her office for a detailed report when things settled down. And then there will probably be a less formal talk with Commander Fury, too, and the old man would offer him a drink and tell him how they needed him, how he shouldn't run into danger head-first like that because he was indispensable to _Eirene_. And Steve would hate every minute of it, because he would feel guilty, but he'd know he'd do it again in a blink. He'd always rather rush into danger himself than send someone else to do the job, always, always.

 

***

 

Tony escaped into the corridor, spurred on by a vague idea he'd head to the pilot's deck and have _another_ shower. This time he'd crash into bed right after and hopefully get a few hours of sleep before his shift started again. He and Hope hadn't repaired the damage for real. They had at best patched it up; it would hold for now, but for two people to do the job of five or six or ten, and in such a short time too – that would be impossible. Still, since the acute crisis was averted, Darryl had taken a team of competent, uninjured and fresh people and began the proper works on the damage. Some parts would need to be changed, some could be repaired, but it wasn't undoable. Everything would most probably turn out all right – right up to the next disaster.

 

He barely made it into the corridor. When he heard the footsteps behind him, it was already too late. Steve was catching up with him.

 

Tony bit the inside of his cheek. He turned to wait for him, because it would probably be rude not to and because he very much wanted to. More than was good for him, in all probability.

 

It's stupid to have your heart beat like that in your chest, isn't it? He drummed his fingers against his suited thigh and tried for casualness. He failed even before he began, because Steve was so blue eyed, and somehow the mouse-gray top flattered his complexion even though it would have made anyone else look drab, and because, when he reached Tony, Steve stood for a moment, obviously at a loss for what to say. That was just too much. His obvious chagrin was too precious. Tony had a ridiculous urge to touch his fingertips to Steve's cheek. Just that.

 

Steve didn't look addled by the painkillers any longer, though. He had shaken off the effects in a record time, then; he must have an amazing metabolism. Either that or Tony had stayed in the landing bay longer than he thought. There had been a lot of people milling around, wanting to talk to him, asking about the damage, congratulating him. He'd felt almost as if he was attending one of his galas, back home. He wore his protection suit as if it were a three-piece, and he schmoozed with the smudgy and the bandaged. He smiled as if he was selling something, because that was what his lips did when he was thinking of other things. And all the while his eyes kept wandering away, looking for a blond head of hair and a pair of broad shoulders. He couldn't help it.

 

As far as Tony could tell, Steve did his best to stay on the sidelines, to help where help was still needed and possibly to slip away. But there were too many people who wanted to thank him and shake his hand or whatever. Only Natasha seemed to be giving him a hard time, only to keep casting worried looks at his back when he wasn't looking.

 

Tony's eyes had met hers over the distance, and she seemingly tried to tell him something with that look, although he had not the slightest idea what.

 

Strangely enough, his eyes never locked on Steve's. He was doing his best not to look over, true. Maybe Steve was avoiding him as well. Maybe what happened on that gurney was too much. For the umpteenth time Tony promised himself to stay away and leave the guy alone, especially if Steve was in a mild state of brain fog due to exhaustion and painkillers.

 

Still, all this made no sense now that Steve had actually caught up to him, here in the corridor.

 

And he apparently had no idea what to say to Tony once he did.

 

In the end he evidently thought it a good idea to go with, "You did very well today, Stark." Maybe because it sounded stiff, a bit too rehearsed, or maybe because he was apparently back to being 'Stark', Tony felt his lips tighten. He didn't need praise from Steve. No, bullshit. He _did_ , and hated himself for it. And what _else_ he needed from Steve was a whole another story. For whatever reason, that was never happening. (And still Steve came chasing after him, and Tony had no idea what _that_ was about.)

 

He shrugged; said nothing. They stared at each other for a moment; a minute. When it became awkward, they both fell into step, automatically, just to save the situation.

 

"All right there, Cap?" Tony asked lightly. It was as if he was stuck in a loop. This seemed the one and only sentence he was able to say to Steve.

 

Steve swallowed audibly. Tried again. "This was your first piece of action. You acted bravely..."

 

 _You acted like an idiot_ , Tony wanted to snap, but clamped his mouth shut. He could just see Steve in his mind's eye, barging into the fire, all by himself. Admiration had absolutely no business showing up for something so asinine, really. _I'd have gone with you_ , he wanted to say; didn't.

 

Steve rubbed his forehead for a second, as if looking for lost words. The gesture was so spontaneous and somehow endearing that Tony softened immediately. He couldn't quite look away. His throat was tight and his mind was a little foggy; he felt frozen in place. Every step they took lasted years. Steve was too close for comfort.

 

"Why..." Tony started. _Why didn't you take more backup? If not for me and Thor randomly showing up, you'd have gone down alone. Isn't the whole military hoopla supposed to be about delegating?_

 

But Steve had started speaking exactly at the same time: "Why do you pretend you don't give a damn?" Steve turned his head, looked him straight in the eye, with a very earnest expression on his face.

 

Tony blinked as if he'd been caught doing something embarrassing. "What?"

 

"I could see how much you cared," Steve said, his eyes piercing, and Tony was perfectly sure there was nothing of the analgesic fog left in his system.

 

"Well," Tony said, wishing fervently he could run away – well, all right, not run _away_ , but retreat to somewhere else in a grandiose manner, at any rate. Very sedately. He cleared his throat. "Now that you know my dirty little secret, can you keep it to yourself or are you going to rattle it off to the tabloids?"

 

Steve laughed out, once. He looked mildly surprised at his own reaction.

 

 _Okay, crisis averted_ , Tony thought feverishly. He didn't want to answer any difficult questions right now. _Time to go on an offensive._ "How come we're not talking about the fact you promptly sent Thor and me away so that you could risk your pretty neck all by yourself, oh, crap, this is inappropriate, isn't it, I went too far with this, didn't I?" he finished, failing to smile.

 

Steve gave his semi-amused nod, and Tony thought it was probably worrisome he could identify Steve's semi-amused nod. Also, the semi-amused meant only that there was another 'semi' in there, and that 'semi' was quite serious.

 

Tony realized he was staring at the slightly flattened lips; staring quite noticeably, probably. The lips were saying _watch it_ , but a spark in Steve's eyes was definitely irreverent. Only, with him, it was usually the lips that won the round, and Tony was kind of getting lost in his own metaphors now... Still, one thing was for sure. Steve never let go completely of his Captain persona, at least not that Tony saw. It was always somewhere in the back, waiting to step out like a frowning guardsman and warn Tony to keep his distance.

 

Even when, like now, Steve hurried after Tony without a real reason, just to – Tony was becoming very convinced of this – _chat idly_ to him.

 

 _Captain Mixed Signals_ , Tony thought ruefully, and for the umpteenth time he wondered what was so wrong with him that Steve persistently refused to take him into consideration, despite the fact the guy was obviously attracted to him...

 

He sighed. Took a deep breath. Remembered what they were to each other, out there in real life, outside of this corridor and this weird little conversation that seemed to contain so much more than what was being said.

 

"Sorry, Cap," he said, trying to sound as honest as he could and probably failing. "I... It's sometimes difficult for me to remember the hierarchy, you know? Which you probably noticed. I'm not a soldier. Well, you probably noticed that as well."

 

Steve frowned noncommittally. "Speaking of soldiers..." He paused for a second. "Why did you leave the academy?" he asked instead of acknowledging any of this. His voice sounded genuinely curious.

 

 _And what a diplomatic way to refer to that mess,_ Tony thought. _He knows. He must. Why's he asking me this now? Or did Fury keep it out of the records?_ "I was kicked out," he said lightly. "A discipline violation, first class. Inconceivable, for someone like me, I know" he added wryly.

 

"I don't know what you were like at eighteen," Steve replied as if he was not sold on this at all.

 

 _Fury used to call me Hellion_ , Tony wanted to say, but didn't.

 

"Well, I wasn't a good fit," Tony said. A beat. "I'm still not." Then he realized this might sound like some weird fishing for compliments thing, so he raised his hand to stop Steve, but the protestation wasn't coming.

 

Steve just inclined his head and regarded him curiously for a moment. "We'll see about that, won't we," he said in the end. Tony could have kissed him at that moment, for the lack of empty platitudes and stupid words of encouragement. Or, he reflected, he could just kiss him for no reason at all. "But today was fine," Steve went on. "You kept a cool head. Did what needed doing. That was enough."

 

Those words, coming from Steve, warmed him like sunlight. And they shouldn't; if they came from someone else, they wouldn't have. They'd have rang empty and Tony wouldn't have given a fuck about them, but from _Steve... How do I fight this?_ he thought. It was easier when Steve pushed him away, when he was cold. This was _unbearable._ Tony twisted his lips wryly and nodded. "That was exactly the reason I left the tech, you know," he said. He thought he sounded vaguely defiant. "I wanted in on the action. Not to be on the sidelines, repairing things while the others have all the fun." His cheek twitched. His stomach felt like a closed fist. The more it constricted with too much emotion, the more flippant he sounded. He needed to erase this conversation from existence, somehow; there was too much heart in it. Erase it and walk away.

 

"You're doing it again – the not giving a damn thing – but now I don't believe you," Steve said, and how could he sound both mild and stubborn at the same time? When exactly had they stopped walking and turned to face each other? How had they ended up so close? Tony could almost feel Steve's breath on his face, or was that just a draft? All of a sudden, he didn't know where to look, but Steve caught his gaze and held it.

 

"You don't have to tell me," he said calmly, soberly. "About the academy. But if you ever wanted to, I'm interested to hear the story."

 

So formal, so precise. _That's your way of keeping everything under control, is it?_ _When you're not exactly_ in _control._ Somehow, the realization just clicked into place . A million other situations with Steve now made a whole different kind of sense. And he was so close, so close now, and he was looking into Tony's face with that earnestness of his. There was something so fundamentally honest about him that Tony suddenly wanted to tell him the whole story that nobody but Rhodey and Fury knew in full. Not because it was so important to hide it, but because telling it to people would mean sharing the burden; it made you feel lighter, afterwards. And Tony didn't want that. It was his own, self-imposed penance, to keep that story close to his heart, always, and not let its impact lessen with time.

 

"I... endangered someone who was my responsibility," he said slowly. "Back in school. Out of recklessness, and because it was fun. Despite the orders, obviously. That's it, that's the whole story. I was an asshole. Couldn't stay after that."

 

"Thank you," Steve said, and he sounded strangely hoarse. (And it wasn't from the smoke; the smoke hoarseness had gone away as quickly as the effects of the painkillers. A freako metabolism, indeed.)

 

As he said his _thank_ _you_ , he stared into Tony's eyes for too long – way longer than what could be considered socially acceptable, or, well, nonsexual. And Tony was standing there, motionless like a statue, and Steve was all to close, and it took just a speck of imagination to picture Steve leaning forward and pressing his lips against Tony's and pressing his _body_ into Tony's. Tony's breath was coming in short gasps and blood was beating in his ears.

 

Like in a dream, slowly, he raised his right hand and touched his fingertips to the biceps of Steve's good arm where it bulged from the gray top. It was a slightest brush, a ghost of a touch, almost not there at all.

 

"Tony... don't," Steve said very softly. His own voice seemed to be caressing Tony and belying Steve's own words. "Please." It was _nothing_ like what had happened in the flight simulator. Still, the memory of _that_ was enough to jar Tony out of his reverie, to make him take a step back and collide with the bulkhead. (How he'd love to have Steve press him against that bulkhead, but that just didn't bear thinking about.)

 

He knew his voice was going to be croaky even before he started speaking. "Tell me I'm crazy," he said. "Tell me there's nothing going on here and I'm just crazy."

 

"You're not crazy," Steve said quietly, levelly. "But I can't, Tony. Please understand."

 

"Why ever the fuck not?" Tony wanted to yell these words, his muscles tight with sudden frustration, but even if he'd tried, his throat was suddenly too dry to oblige.

 

The breath Steve took was audible. "There are... fraternization rules," he said. It was almost a whisper. "You're my cadet. I'm your captain. It's not done."

 

Tony frowned for a second, found a perfect solution in a blink. "Okay, so when I'm a pilot..."

 

"No," Steve said regretfully. "Still not possible."

 

This was... irritating. This heartbreaking situation, this thing that hampered something Tony had come to desire with all his heart – it was positively... irritating.  "Aw come on," he snapped. "Even out here? This side of the red line? Who's gonna mind? Who's gonna _care_?"

 

"I am," Steve said simply and somehow very finally.

 

"And would you also care to explain that?" Tony said, then heard the way he sounded. He ran a hand over his face, shook his head. "Sorry," he said, and Steve nodded. "Long day. Just... long day."

 

"It's not right," Steve said, and proceeded to explain about favoritism, about the effect on the other cadets, about the importance of _Steve himself_ following the rules, because if he was seen waving them off, everyone was going to wave them off; and the situation they were in, it was in a precarious balance, and sometimes following the rules was what actually kept you human when it would be so easy to break down and become something less than that.

 

And as much as Tony wanted to dismiss this, he had to admit it made a certain convoluted kind of sense. Besides, it didn't matter if he agreed with it or not. It was Steve's decision. This was what Steve wanted, and Tony could only be grateful he finally had an explanation.

 

He looked away. "Thank you for telling me," he said, aware he probably sounded a tad broken. Hated himself for it, because, despite all the newfound honesty, something in him protested – he couldn't let Steve know how _much_ he actually cared, how _much_ he wanted this.

 

Ridiculously much, that was how much.

 

He needed to shut up now and respect Steve's decision. Try to be gracious for once in his life.

 

"But you do think I'm hot, don't you?" he heard himself say, and then, since it was out already, he just plunged on. What other choice did he have now? "Just tell me that one thing. Just admit it."

 

Steve's arms rose as if he was going to grab Tony and pull him close. Then they fell back down. "Yes, Tony," Steve said softly. "I find you very attractive."

 

It shot through Tony like a thrill, like a lightning, and he felt it in his chest, and he felt it in his groin, warm and tight. The words that could set him on fire in two easy seconds. Pity that wasn't ever happening, eh?

 

_You like me and you can't stay away and you come after me here, to... what? Talk? What??_

 

"So, why are you here?" he asked. And his voice wasn't harsh. He wanted to grab Steve by the shoulders and shake his stupid ideals out of him and then kiss him silly, but his voice wasn't harsh.

 

Then a sudden thought occurred to him. Was that what Steve wanted? Did he want Tony to make that decision for him? Relieve him of the responsibility? Was it why he was here?

 

No, Tony thought, not Mr. Integrity. Not _Steve._ "Why are you here, then?" he repeated very softly. "What do you want?"

 

It didn't take a beat for Steve to respond. "How about: a friend?"

 

It was so frank and earnest that Tony had to stop for a moment. To swallow. To recalibrate. He stood there blinking for a second. "Yeah, all right," he blurted. "Doable."

 

Steve treated him with a softest small smile.

 

It wasn't your regular 'let's be friends' some people served you. Steve wasn't trying to let him down easy. What Steve said – he meant. That much was clear to Tony. _Friends,_ he thought. It wasn't that bad. It was actually... very much not bad. It was the very opposite of bad. If all Tony wanted from Steve was a good fuck, he'd be calling bullshit right about now, at least in the privacy of his own head. He wasn't. If he needed any further proof of his own feelings, this was it.

 

It took him a moment to identify the nature of the warmth in his chest cavity. He was happy that Steve not only lusted after him, but also wanted him in his life in some capacity. Tony was feeling _flattered._

 

 _I must never let him notice_ , was Tony's first, panicky thought.

 

They walked towards the elevator, side by side, bumping elbows, and Tony was saturated in warm glow, a golden feeling, as if this was going to lead somewhere, somewhere good and right, and not stay frozen mid-motion forever, the way it had to.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are what I eat and breathe (thank you!), even when I don't get to answer them because of writer-unfirendly RL circumstances.


End file.
